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EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 






EVENINGS WITH 
SHAKESPEARE 

AND OTHER ESSAYS 



BT 

EDWARD W. CHAPIN 




CAMBRIDGE 

Printed at W&t Hiberatte Jkess 

1911 



\ 



^ 



COPYRIGHT, I91 1, BY EDWARD W. CHAPIN 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



CI.A*S*)430 



PREFACE 

Twenty years ago fifteen business and professional 
men in Holyoke organized a club for social and lit- 
erary purposes. They met fortnightly during each 
winter alternately at the homes of the different mem- 
bers; each member in turn reading some essay which 
was followed by a discussion. Among the many essays 
read are the following, which the writer has put in 
permanent form as a tribute to the patience of the 
club, and as a record for the benefit of family and 
friends, to show how a portion of the last score of 
years has been passed in evenings at "The Club." 

Holyoke, Dec. 25, 1910. 



CONTENTS 

I. CORIOLANUS 1 

II. Hamlet 22 



HI. Macbeth 41 

IV. Othello 61 

V. King Lear 82^ 

VI. Henry V and Falstaff .... 99 

Vn. The Tempest 122 

Vin. Oliver Wendell Holmes . . .136 

IX. Ralph Waldo Emerson . . . .156 

X. Alexander Hamilton .... 179 

XI. Robert Louis Stevenson .... 198 

XH. Oliver Goldsmith . . . . .215 

XIIL Addison's Sir Roger de Coverlet Papers 233 



CORIOLANUS 

The members of the Club have been entertained 
during the past few months with reflections upon the 
purposes and objects of a club; have, under the guid- 
ance of an ex-Congressman, paid a visit to Washing- 
ton and the halls of Congress; have wondered at the 
rapid conquests and overwhelming successes which 
attended Mahomet as he led the Saracens to Eastern 
conquests; have listened to the demands of education 
and its methods set forth by a skillful teacher; have 
traveled with the Judge through Canada, and declined 
to annex it to the United States; have enjoyed the ex- 
amination of the foundations of our Government made 
by one of the club, aided by the illuminating light of 
Mr. Bryce; have considered the different phases of 
socialism, its lights and shadows; have in imagination 
visited the revolving planets about us, and dipped 
into the future somewhat further than human eye can 
see; have with the microscope considered the minut- 
est objects of existence as they have been carefully 
exhibited to us by one of the suburban members of 
the club, while another, interested in things bucolic 
and electric, has explained to us how the tamed 
lightning will draw the street-cars about the city. A 
successful manufacturer has interestingly compared 
past with present business methods; while the Faerie 



2 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

Queene has been gracefully introduced to the club by 
one of her most ardent admirers, leading us all to join 
him in his enthusiasm. We lately listened with plea- 
sure to the essay which so carefully illustrated the 
moral and religious side of Shakespeare's character; 
and now, before the Doctor is called in at the close to 
explain Christian Science and mind cures, it may not 
be amiss to resume an examination of the works of 
Shakespeare, that myriad-minded man, — 

" Who knew and drew all ranks of men, 
And did such life to them impart 
They grew not old, immortal types, 
The lords of life and art." 

The halls of the Roman Coliseum are falling into 
ruins, yet year by year visitors throng the old city to 
see the remnants of her former greatness and hold 
communion with the past. Formerly, to be a Roman 
citizen was one of the noblest privileges, and one 
which always entitled the man so qualified to receive 
the highest respect among his fellows. 

The time described in the play of "Coriolanus" 
is the period shortly after 500 b. c. The play was 
written after those of "Hamlet," "Julius Caesar," 
"Othello," "Macbeth," and "King Lear," and is 
supposed to have been composed in the year 1607 or 
1608. In its composition it is among the last of 
Shakespeare's plays, and exhibits great maturity of 
thought. 

The story of Coriolanus has been well told by the 



CORIOLANUS 3 

historian Plutarch, but it was left to the great dram- 
atist to breathe as it were into the characters of that 
history a life of action and reality, so that they seem 
to live again in the imperial city, and people its 
streets, palaces, and public halls as in days of yore. 
The characters of the play are made to think, speak, 
and act with life and motion. 

Holmes once said : "The latch-key which opens into 
the inner chamber of my consciousness fits, as I have 
reason to believe, the private apartments of a good 
many other people's thoughts. . . . The longer we 
live the more we find we are like other persons." 
Shakespeare has not hesitated to make free use of 
such a key, as he has skillfully opened to our inspec- 
tion the hearts of all mankind. We are allowed to 
look into the minds and hearts of the actors and take 
note of their secret thoughts and aspirations, their 
hopes and fears. 

He has shown to us in this play the envy and jeal- 
ousy existing between the higher and lower classes 
of society, the former called in Roman history the 
patricians, and the latter the plebeians. During the 
time portrayed in the play, kings had ceased to reign 
and consuls held the first place. Reference is made to 
the withdrawal of the common people from the city; 
the attempt to establish a separate government is 
described; then followed an embassy and a concession 
to the demands of the people for representation; for 
this purpose the plebeians were allowed to choose 



4 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

tribunes to look after their interests. These stood at 
the entrance of the Senate chamber, and if the pass- 
age of any measure was attempted which was hos- 
tile to the plebeians, the tribunes exclaimed, " Veto! " 
and the proposition was rejected. 

Caius Marcius Coriolanus was not an admirer of 
the plebeian character. His actions in the past had 
stirred up some hostility among the plebeians. At 
one time there was a great scarcity of corn; and when 
a supply had come from Etruria the plebeians had 
asked for its gratuitous distribution. This was op- 
posed by Caius Marcius, who exclaimed, "No corn 
or no tribunes"; hence in part the opposition we find 
among the plebeians in the play, which Menenius 
Agrippa so ingeniously sought to overcome. How 
skillfully he calmed the rising storm and subdued the 
anger of the populace, as he narrates the fable of the 
belly and the members, showing how all, though hav- 
ing different offices are yet dependent upon each 
other, telling them, — 

"The Senators of Rome are this good belly. 
And you the mutinous members; for, examine 
Their counsels and their cares; digest things rightly 
Touching the weal o' the common; you shall find, 
No public benefit which you receive 
But it proceeds or comes from them to you. 
And no way from yourselves." 

The moral drawn from this fable is worthy of appli- 
cation to all discordant elements and disturbers of 
government. It aptly illustrates the dependence of 



CORIOLANUS 5 

the different orders and members of the body politic 
on one another, shows how some are born to com- 
mand and others to obey, while all should work 
harmoniously together for the good of the whole. 
The same subject is illustrated in another play, in 
the description of the busy hive, and is worthy of 
careful consideration by all advocates of socialism. 

"Therefore doth heaven divide 
The state of man in divers functions, s 
Setting endeavour in continual motion 
To which is fixed as an aim or butt, 
Obedience; for so work the honey bees, 
Creatures that by a rule in nature teach 
The act of order to a peopled kingdom. 
They have a king and officers of sorts: 
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home; * 
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad; 
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings. 
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds: 
Which pillage they with merry march bring home • 
To the tent royal of their emperor; 
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys 
The singing masons building roofs of gold; 
The civil citizens kneading up the honey, 
The poor mechanic porters crowding in ' 
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate, 
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum. 
Delivering o 'er to executors pale 
The lazy yawning drone. I this infer, 
That many things, having full reference 
To one consent, may work contrariously. 
As many arrows, loosed several ways, 
Fly to one mark: as many ways meet in one town; 
As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea; 
As many lines close in the dial's centre; 



6 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

So may a thousand actions, once afoot, 
End in one purpose, and be all well borne 
Without defeat." 

During the war which arose with the neighboring 
Volscians Caius Marcius led the Roman troops to 
battle, successfully drove the Volscians into their 
own city, Corioli, with a handful of followers, and 
returned in triumph home, winning the name of 
Coriolanus by that brave exploit. | 

Soon the time came for the choice of consul, 
which officer was chosen annually, usually from 
among those distinguished for military prowess. The 
name of Coriolanus, as the nation's defender and 
preserver, was brought before the people. He solicits 
their support, but finally fails of nomination. His 
indignation is without bounds; he is charged with 
treason and banished. He leaves his mother, wife, and 
boy, and indignant at his country's treatment, goes 
over to the Volscians and takes up arms against his 
fatherland. Under his leadership the Roman eagles 
are driven back, and the city of Rome is in danger. 
Ambassadors sent for terms of peace are coolly 
received; his old friend Menenius Agrippa uses his 
influence in vain. The approach of his mother and 
his noble wife and child, however, subdues his stub- 
born will, the power of maternal affection triumphs. 
He spares Rome, but pays the penalty with his own 
life. 

Such in brief is the story. 



CORIOLANUS 7 

We have heretofore alluded to the withdrawal of the 
plebeians, which threatened ruin to the Roman state. 
The establishment of the tribunes secured their adhe- 
sion to the existing government. Their support was 
sought by all who would win success, their voices and 
votes were needed to win the nomination to a consul- 
ship. 

To win a man's support political aspirants often 
appeal to some affection of the one to be influenced. 
Is he poor — an offer of money is made. Is he ambi- 
tious — place or office is offered. Is he a strong parti- 
san — they propose measures to advance his party 
interests. Had Rome required the payment of a poll- 
tax, doubtless the plebeians would have been ap- 
pealed to for their votes by money or offers to pay 
this amount. It remained to later days to show how 
offices could be bought and sold for money. Well did 
the Prince of Arragon say when standing before the 
caskets in Portia's house: — 

"Let none presume 
To wear an undeserved dignity. 
O, that estates, degrees, and offices 
Were not deriv'd corruptly; and that clear honour 
Were purchas'd by the merit of the wearer! 
How many then should cover that stand bare! 
How many be commanded that command! " 

Coriolanus was a candidate for the consulship. He 
was too proud to beg and it was against his inclina- 
tion to obtain office by appeals to the common people. 
Menenius tells him the Senate is well pleased to make 



8 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

him consul and it remains that he speak to the people. 

This he dislikes to do; he says: — ,; 

"I do beseech you 
Let me o'erleap that custom; for I cannot 
Put on the gown, stand naked, and entreat them, 
For my wounds' sake, to give their suffrage. Please you 
That I may pass this doing." 

"It is a part 
That I shall blush in acting, and might well 
Be taken from the people." 

It is humiliating to his pride, but finally he yields 
to solicitation. He says, "Since the wisdom of their 
[the common people's] choice is rather to have my 
hat than my heart, I will practice the insinuating nod 
and be off to them most counterfeitly." 

" Better it is to die, better to starve, 
Than crave the hire which first we do deserve. 
Why in this wolvish toge should I stand here. 
To beg of Hob and Dick, that do appear, 
Their needless vouches? Custom calls me to 't. 
What custom wills, in all things should we do 't, 
The dust on antique time would lie unswept, 
And mountainous error be too highly heapt 
For truth to o'er-peer. Rather than fool it so, 
Let the high office and the honour go 
To one that would do thus. — I am half through; 
The one part suffered, th' other will I do." 

His appeal for the people's voices is successful, and 

Sicinius tells him : — 

"The custom of request you have discharged. 
The people do admit you; and you are summon'd, 
To meet anon, upon your approbation." 

Thus the wily Tribune Sicinius talks to Coriolanus 



CORIOLANUS 9 

in his presence; but we next find him in close confab 
with another tribune, Brutus, and also stirring up the 
people to reject Coriolanus and withdraw their ap- 
proval of his fitness; telling the plebeians to notice — 

"With what contempt he wore the humble weed, 
How in his suit he scorned you; but your loves 
Thinking upon his services, took from you 
The apprehension of his present portance, 
Which, most gibingly, ungravely, he did fashion 
After th' inveterate hate he bears you." 

^ Is not the preceding a portrayal of to-day's politi- 
cal drama? It is the needed vote instead of voice 
to-day, but office nowadays is too often bought 
instead of won by merit alone. Each party accuses 
the other of buying the election. What shall be done? 
Shall we fight the Devil with fire or let the good man 
suffer defeat? To what length shall we go, and when 
shall we stop, in the use of methods to secure the elec- 
tion of worthy men to office? How can we purify our 
elections? This old Roman play shows us the same 
unfair elements at work in days of old. Men then were 
used as the tools and machines of designing men 
who did not scruple at the methods used, provided 
the coveted office was obtained. The same danger 
threatens us to-day. 

Was not the true principle by which we should be 

guided wisely stated by President Gates of Amherst 

College, in a public address delivered in December, 

1890? 

'"To seek for political influence in upright and 



10 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

noble ways, through convincing the reason and awak- 
ening and satisfying right desires is an honorable 
ambition, but since every man is to be regarded as an 
intelligent agent, under obligation to order his life 
for intelligent ends, how disgraceful becomes the 
work of the politician who is known as a clever 
'manipulator of men.' He does not appeal to reason. 
He handles men as tools. He debases manhood in 
himself and in others. We see too what a flood of 
light this principle throws upon the enormous wrong 
done to American manhood by bribery, whether the 
price paid is the direct money bribe or is the public 
office which should be a public trust, but is debased to 
the level of partisan plunder. Respect for the intelli- 
gent manhood of every man, this alone can give us 
patience to wait while we labor for the full triumph of 
these greatly needed reforms of the ballot laws and 
civil service." 

President Gates has given us a noble principle for 
guidance in elections, but it is a difficult one to enforce 
when applied to the ignorant foreigners crowding our 
shores. They are soon made voters, ready to sell their 
votes to the highest bidder. To appeal to their reason 
and intelligence is to cast pearls before swine, yet 
there is behind us the sustaining force and power of 
patriotism, educating and christianizing influences, 
powerfully working, which will I think under God's 
providence prevent ignorant and unprincipled men 
from obtaining control of our government. 



CORIOLANUS 11 

Brutus and Sicinius disliked to hear the praises of 
Coriolanus; they would be friends to his face but foes 
behind his back, and strike him down from behind. 
Their insidious and underhand appeals are success- 
ful, and Coriolanus is rejected. The tribunes caused 
his defeat, and he condemns their power; says that 

"In a rebellion, 
When what 's not meet, but what must be, was law. 
Then were they chosen; in a better hour, 
Let what is meet be said it must be meet, 
And throw their power i' the dust." 

He is accused of treason, and banishment pro- 
nounced. His impetuosity in war is also marked. 
Menenius only sees his worth, and finds words to 
praise him in his attempts to repress popular indig- 
nation. Says Menenius : — 

"His nature is too noble for the world; 
He would not flatter Neptune for his trident, 
Or Jove for's power to thunder. His heart's his mouth; 
What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent; 
And, being angry, does forget that ever 
He heard the name of death." 

His mother's power is seen in its influence over 
him when she begs him to go to the market-place and 
by apologies assuage the rising feelings of the popu- 
lace. She says to him: — 

"You are too absolute; 
Though therein you can never be too noble, 
But when extremities speak, I 've heard you say. 
Honour and policy, like unsever'd friends, 
I' the war do grow together. Grant that, and tell me 



n EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE > 

In peace what each of them by the other lose, 
That they combine not there." 

He is not yet convinced: — 

"I will not do't, 
Lest I surcease to honour mine own truth 
And by my body's action teach my mind 
A most inherent baseness." 

The mother replies : — 

"At thy choice, then. 
To beg of thee it is my more dishonour 
Than thou of them. Come all to ruin! Let 
Thy mother rather feel thy pride than fear 
Thy dangerous stoutness; for I mock at death 
With as big heart as thou. Do as thou list. 
Thy valiantness was mine, thou suck'dst it from me; 
But owe thy pride thyself." 

Immediately Coriolanus replies: — 

"Pray be content: 
Mother, I am going to the market-place: 
Chide me no more." 

He goes, but the charges of tyranny arouse his in- 
dignation, and his fierce denunciation of the tribunes 
awakens a storm of fury, and a clamor arises for his 
banishment. Then bursts that storm of contempt of 
the populace: — 

"You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate 
As reeks o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize 
As the dead carcasses of unburied men 
That do corrupt my air, / banish youl " 

Compelled to leave his native city, he parts with 
wife, mother, and friends at the city gates. There he 
says: — 



CORIOLANUS 13 

" When I am forth. 
Bid me farewell and smile." 

Immediately he goes to the camp of the Volscians, 
to the city of Antium; he calls for Aufidius, his former 
bitter foe, tells him that his country has banished 
him, and that he seeks revenge or death; he says 
that he — 

"will fight 
Against my cank'red country with spleen 
Of all the under fiends." 

The surprised Aufidius receives his former foe with 

open arms. 

"Each word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heart 
A root of ancient envy. . . . 

I do contest 
As hotly and as nobly with thy love 
As ever in ambitious strength I did 
Contend against thy valour." 

Aufidius gives him joint control of the troops, who 
advance upon Rome. Consternation now seizes the 
hearts of tribunes and Roman populace alike. The 
citizens cry out, "Though we willingly consented to 
his banishment, yet it was against our will." 

The envious Brutus says : — 

" I do not like this news. . . . 

Would half my wealth 
Would buy this for a lie!" 

But all is not harmony in the camp of the foe. Cori- 
olanus's military prestige awakens Aufidius's envy, 
stirred up by his lieutenant, who tells Aufidius that 
his own soldiers use Coriolanus — 



14 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

"As the grace 'fore meat, 
Their talk at table, and their thanks at end." 

Such praise increases Aufidius's hate. He has care- 
fully measured the mental qualities of his would-be 
ally, and judges that the same qualities which secured 
his banishment from Rome will of necessity secure 
his downfall in Corioli. 

"So our virtues 
Lie in th' interpretation of the time: 
And power, unto itself most commendable. 
Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair, 
To extol what it hath done." 

The arrogance of the soldier is sure to ruin the 

civilian when placed upon a chair of state in honor 

of his deeds. 

In vain do ambassadors seek interviews; unheard 

by Coriolanus, Cominius returns and says Coriola- 

nus's eye is — 

"Red as 't would burn Rome ; and his injury 
The gaoler to his pity." 

Menenius is besought by Brutus to make trial what 

his love can do for Rome. He consents, but says that 

he shall be careful of the time when he approaches; 

that Coriolanus — 

"Was not taken well; he had not din'd. 
The veins unfill'd our blood is cold, and then 
We pout upon the morning, are unapt 
To give or to forgive : but, when we have stuff 'd 
These pipes and these conveyances of our blood 
With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls 
Than in our priest-like fasts: therefore I'll watch him 



CORIOLANUS 15 



Till he be dieted to my request, 
And then 1 '11 set upon him." 

Brutus replies: — 

"You know the very road into his kindness 
And cannot lose your way." 

We have not the menu of Coriolanus, to know the 
courses of his table; we only know that the post- 
prandial interview proved unsuccessful. The plead- 
ings of his old friend were in vain. Coriolanus tells 
him — 

"Wife, mother, child, I know not. My affairs 
Are servanted to others: though I owe 
My revenge properly. My remission lies 
In Volscian breasts. That we have been familiar, 
Ingrate forgetfulness shall poison rather 
Than pity note how much." 

Coriolanus sees his mother and wife approaching, 
dressed in mourning habits, and leading his young 
boy; but he determines not to yield: "I'll never," he 
says, — 

" Be such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand 
As if a man were author of himself 
And knew no other kin." 

He receives them coldly; anon, he appeals to them, 

"Do not bid me 
Dismiss my soldiers, or capitulate 
Again with Rome's mechanics: tell me not 
Wherein I seem unnatural; desire not 
T' allay my rages and revenges with 
Your colder reasons." 



16 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

It is stated by one of the historians of the time that 
when his mother advanced, Coriolanus was too much 
a Roman to fail of filial respect, but ordered the fasces 
lowered. "Am I face to face with my son or with an 
enemy? " said the dignified woman as she approached, 

"To poor we 
Thine enmity 's most capital. Thou barr'st us 
Our prayers to the gods, which is a comfort 
That all but we enjoy; for how can we, 
Alas, how can we for our country pray, 
Whereto we are bound, together with thy victory, 
Whereto we are bound? Alack, or we must lose 
The country, our dear nurse, or else thy person, 
Our comfort in the country. We must find 
An evident calamity, though we had 
Our wish, which side should win; for either thou 
Must, as a foreign recreant, be led 
With manacles through our streets, or else 
Triumphantly tread on thy country's ruin, 
And bear the palm for having bravely shed 
Thy wife and children's blood. For myself, son, 
I purpose not to wait on fortune till 
These wars determine. If I cannot persuade thee 
Rather to show a noble grace to both parts 
Than seek the end of one, thou shalt no sooner 
March to assault thy country than to tread — 
Trust to 't, thou shalt not — on thy mother's womb, 
That brought thee to this world — 

If thou conquer Rome, the benefit 
Which thou shalt thereby reap, is such a name 
Whose repetition will be dogg'd with curses; 
Whose chronicle thus writ: " The man was noble, 
But with his last attempt he wip'd it out; 
Destroy' d his country; and his name remains 
To the ensuing age abhorr'd." 



CORIOLANUS 17 

The mother won. She saved her country, but she 
lost her son. His relenting heart turned the envious 
Volseians against himself, and he fell at last pierced 
by the swords of conspirators. 

The history is adapted in its application to the 
present day as well as to Roman times. Enmity and 
dislike of government are not wholly unknown to the 
present generation. There are not wanting those also 
who, like the tribunes in the play, seek to disturb the 
minds of the common people, soliciting votes for the 
office rather than for the good of the state. It cannot 
be said of them as was said of the Duke of Wellington, 
that he was one who — 

"Cares not to be great. 
But as he saves or serves the state." 

How often the charge is made that the office was 
obtained by unworthy methods! Popular support is 
sought and the politician does not hesitate to — 

" Crook the pregnant hinges of the knee 
Where thrift may follow fawning." 

Coriolanus disliked to beg votes or buy them by 
dissimulation. He wished to be and not to seem — 
he preferred to be a servant to the common people in 
his own way rather than to rule over them in theirs. 
In the forum of his conscience was tried the cause so 
often tried in the hearts of men. The voice of nature 
pleaded for Honor, while his mother urged policy. 
Honor and manhood lost, and policy won. Pride de- 
sired the consulship, while Conscience told him not 



18 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

i 

to buy it of the common people by false pretences. A 
mother's influence in this case overcame the conscien- 
tious scruples of the son. 

The influence of the Roman mother is vividly por- 
. trayed in this play. In the first act, one citizen tells 
another that Coriolanus engaged in war to please his 
mother. She makes her influence felt in the canvas for 
the consulship, and when she approaches Antium, and 
beseeches Coriolanus to spare Rome, her appeals 
alone secured what no one else could accomplish. Ma- 
ternal affection and family ties conquered the bitter- 
est hate. 

In Shakespeare's plays we find great contrasts in 
the characters described. In this we find different 
classes of Roman citizens contrasted. The plebeians 
claimed that the patricians were oppressive, and they 
were envious of their power. 

It was well for Rome and the safety of the state that 
it possessed in the time of disorder such a wise coun- 
selor as Menenius Agrippa. His deliberate counsels 
appear the wiser, contrasted with the hasty exclama- 
tions of the excited populace, who in our day would 
be found among the Socialists and Knights of Labor. 

Note the contrast between mother and wife, — the 
latter so quiet that Coriolanus chides her when he 
comes in elated with victory, calls her his "gracious 
silence," says to her as she weeps tears of joy, — 

" Would'st thou have laughed had I come coffin'd home, 
That weep'st to see me triumph?" 



CORIOLANUS 19 

She would not leave her home in his absence, could 
not bear to hear of his being wounded, so tender- 
hearted was the wife. The mother rejoiced to hear of 
wounds, and thought only of their convincing force 
in advancing her son's political interests. 

The boldness of the mother makes the modesty of 
the wife the more attractive by contrast. Ruskin de- 
lights to notice that Shakespeare has no perfect he- 
roes — only perfect heroines, and beginning with 
Cordelia closes the long list with Virgilia, "last and 
perhaps loveliest." 

Every life is affected by the circumstances that 
surround it, and these the poet in this play has skill- 
fully woven into the story to illustrate character in 
questions of war and peace, of social and political life. 
Men and women move amid these scenes, speaking 
and acting their minutest thoughts. We admire the 
nobility of the hero, but regret his inability to rule his 
spirit when counter-currents meet in his life. His 
banishment excites our pity, but we side with his 
mother when she makes that strong appeal for her 
country's salvation. 

Our sympathy was with him when he was trying 
to win by noble ends alone, while his mother argued 
for policy; but now she has forgotten her anger at the 
banishment of her son and thinks first of her country. 
Great was her trial, but the noblest sentiments finally 
prevailed, and her country is saved. 

The cry of treason caused the banishment of Corio- 



/ 



20 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

lanus; now the same cry among his country's foes 
brings him to sudden death. 

In a former play Shakespeare exhibited Mark An- 
tony's fall by reason of effeminacy and sensualism. 
^ In this play impetuous and uncontrolled pride, ego- 
tism, and hatred cause the overthrow of its hero. 
Macbeth plotted against his guest, Coriolanus against 
his native country. His name rises in history as a 
f ' warning against supreme egotism and intolerant pas- 
sion. And whether he is a hero of fact or fiction, he 
will stand as a forcible illustration of the truth of the 
sacred word, that "Pride goeth before destruction, 
and a haughty spirit before a fall." The play exhibits 
the anger of a man whose merits did not receive 
proper reward at the hands of his countrymen; their 
rejection of him awakens in his breast that bitter 
feeling of revenge which seeks the destruction of his 
own country. 

The character does not live in Roman history alone. 
Benedict Arnold is a representation of that same 
character in our country's history. By meritorious 
service he deserved to be raised to the rank of major- 
general, but congress appointed five others, his inferi- 
ors, to that position, and neglected him. The slight 
that was put upon him originated in his mind that 
design, fed by avarice, of a betrayal of his country, 
which was afterward so carefully planned but so for- 
tunately discovered. 

The same spirit is sometimes developed when men 



CORIOLANUS 21 

who have failed to receive what they think they de- 
serve as a reward for service, desert their cause and 
party, go over to their opponents, and aid in the de- 
struction of a party they formerly supported. 

The character of this play stands as a warning 
against intolerant passion and vindictive pride. It 
made the possessor miserable while he lived and 
brought down upon him the reproaches of mankind. 

In the consideration of the subject I have quoted 
extensively from the play, believing that the hearer, 
like the thirsty man, would prefer to quaff rich 
draughts directly from the Pierian Spring rather than 
listen to a glowing description of the merits of the 
beverage. There are some portions of the play more 
attractive than others, but, after all, the best com- 
mentary upon Shakespeare is Shakespeare himself. 

We leave the play after its careful study, with a 
picture on the walls of memory of political and social 
life in ancient Rome during an interesting period of 
her history. The chief characters of this, as of many 
another play, will in our memories — 

"Come and go 
More real, shadows though they be, 
Than many a man we know." 



HAMLET 

The visitor to Shakespeare's birthplace finds many- 
objects of interest to remind him of the high regard 
and fond memory in which the great poet is held. 

The whole of Stratford-on-Avon is a continual 
reminder of Shakespeare. The stranger on entering 
the place notes a sign pointing the way to Shake- 
speare's house; the local bank is adorned with a cast 
of Shakespeare above its entrance; small boys meet 
the incoming visitors upon the streets repeating 
snatches from Shakespeare's plays; the village church 
and chancel mark his last resting-place, near the banks 
of the placid river of which Garrick has written: — 

" Thou soft-flowing Avon, — by thy silver stream 

Of things more than mortal sweet Shakespeare would dream. 
The fairies by moonlight dance round his green bed, 
For hallowed the turf is, which pillowed his head." 

The memorial theatre, a short distance away, is for 
a time during each year opened for the performance 
of the different plays by actors of note. Here we find 
also a beautiful monument designed by Sir Ronald 
Gower, surmounted by a group of bronze figures re- 
presenting prominent characters in the plays: Mac- 
beth representing Tragedy; Falstaff, Comedy; Henry 
IV, History; Hamlet, Philosophy. 
i Of Macbeth we read the inscription: — 



HAMLET 23 

"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player 
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage 
And then is heard no more." 

Of Falstaff : "I am not only witty by myself, but the 
cause that wit is in other men." Of Prince Hal: — 

"Consideration, like an angel, came 
And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him." 

Of Hamlet: — 

"Good-night, Sweet Prince, 
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." 

It is of the last character that we write especially 
at this time, and of all the plays of Shakespeare 
" Hamlet " seems to be the one which best reveals his 
talent. Tennyson has said : " * Hamlet ' is the greatest 
creation in literature that I know of." Although it 
was written nearly three centuries ago, its popularity 
has not decreased and it still is a favorite of the play- 
goer and of the scholar. 

Like all of Shakespeare's plays it is in part modeled 
upon the story found in some former history or play. 
By some it is thought to have been partly founded 
upon a work by Saxo Grammaticus, a Danish histo- 
rian, written as early as 1204, but not printed until 
1514. 

The date of the play in its present form is ascribed 
to the year 1602. The plays of " Henry VI," "Rich- 
ard II," " Richard III," " King John," " Henry IV," 
" Henry V," and " Julius Csesar," all historical plays, 
had been previously written. Previous research and 
study had made Shakespeare fully acquainted with 



U EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

past history and with the kings, rulers, and people of 
different nations. 

English history presented a strong parallel to the 
present play in the intrigue and sudden death, fol- 
lowed by the hasty marriage, of prominent persons 
who lived a few years before the date of the play; and 
it has been suggested that Shakespeare designed this 
tragedy as an indirect censure on Mary Queen of 
Scots. 

Darnley, the husband of Mary Stuart, was mur- 
dered on February 9, 1567. The Earl of Both well was 
commonly reported to be the murderer, and strong 
suspicions existed that Queen Mary was in complicity 
with him in planning Darnley's death. 

The Earl of Bothwell obtained a hasty divorce from 
his wife on May 6 of the same year, and twelve days 
after, he married Mary Stuart. 

The sudden death of Darnley followed by a mar- 
riage so hastily solemnized with his reputed murderer 
might well attract the keen mind of Shakespeare to 
present this tragedy of wickedness in high places as 
a representation of past history in England as well as 
in Denmark. 

Hamlet is represented as thirty years of age, a na- 
tive of Denmark; a young man of noble mind, — 

"The expectancy and rose of the fair state, 
The glass of fashion and the mould of form." 

He attended school at Elsinore and was called 
home on account of his bereavement. It was reported 



HAMLET 25 

that the sting of a serpent had caused his father's 
death as he lay sleeping in the arbor. 

The play opens with the appearance of the Ghost, 
and Hamlet is horrified to learn from this solemn mes- 
senger that his father has been murdered by his own 
brother. 

The revelation made by the Ghost startled Ham- 
let, and his last words of parting, — 

"Adieu, Adieu! Hamlet, remember me/* 

were never forgotten. He at once called upon his 
companions Horatio and Marcellus to swear by his 
sword — 

"Never to speak of this that you have seen," — 

and — 

"How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself, — 
As I perchance hereafter shall think meet 
To put an antic disposition on;" — 

never to give out — 

"That you know aught of me 

And still your fingers on your lips, I pray. 
The time is out of joint; — O cursed spite, 
That ever I was born to set it right! " — 

The above oath was faithfully kept by Hamlet's 
companions, and the words of Hamlet explain the 
purpose which he so successfully carried out in feign- 
ing a madness which did not exist, and which Horatio, 
his dearest friend, did not explain until after Ham- 
let's death. * 

A hard task was placed upon Hamlet — a com- 



26 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

mand to punish the murderer, to reprove his mother, 
but to do himself no wrong. Like Vincentio the 
Duke in "Measure for Measure," his position was 
one of difficulty. 

" He who the sword of heaven will bear 
Should be as holy as severe." 

In the execution of the solemn commission given to 
Hamlet by his father's spirit he was slow to act, and 
given to long delay — his resolution was — 

"sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought"; 

and though always wrapped in deep meditation, his 
resolutions and plans were carried into effect only 
after long hesitation. 

To understand his case we must carefully study the 
conditions under which he was placed. The murder 
of his father was unseen by any person. The revela- 
tion was made to Hamlet by the ghost of his father. 
What was Hamlet to do? Suppose he should imme- 
diately kill the King, what answer could be made to 
the world for his act? Would it be a sufficient answer 
that a ghost had informed him of the murder and 
revealed the murderer? Was the tale a true one? was 
the ghost an honest one? To satisfy himself and to 
satisfy others, he must carefully investigate the case 
and learn by an examination of facts the truth of the 
story. He must act the part of a detective and at- 
tempt to unmask the villain, and if possible wring a 
confession from him. 



HAMLET 27 

He cannot bring the suspected person suddenly 
into the presence of his victim and watch his appear- 
ance and conduct as he is confronted by the dead 
king. He can, however, confront him with a scene 
in which the past tragedy will be portrayed and 
the identical crime reenacted before the whole court, 
and thus an opportunity be given to watch its effect 
upon the suspected man. 

His plan is matured, and he exclaims with satis- 
faction: — 

"The play's the thing 
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king." 

The play was a great success in establishing a firm 
conviction in the minds of Hamlet and Horatio of the 
king's guilt as he was closely watched by them. Im- 
mediately afterward the king became Hamlet's secret 
enemy and plotted his destruction. 

In his address to the players before they appeared, 
we find Shakespeare's estimate of what the good 
actor should always have in mind: that "the purpose 
of playing . . . was and is to hold as 't were the mir- 
ror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, 
scorn her own image, and the very age and body of 
the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone 
or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, 
cannot but make the judicious grieve : the censure of 
the which one must, in your allowance, o'erweigh a 
whole theatre of others." 

Among the many characters presented in this play 



28 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

there was but one who secured Hamlet's closest con- 
fidence — the court attendants he despised as flat- 
terers and sycophants, persons who — 

"... crook the pregnant hinges of the knee 
Where thrift may follow fawning." 

Of Horatio he says : — 

"Thou art e'en as just a man, 
As e'er my conversation coped withal." < 

"Since my dear soul was mistress of my choice 
And could of men distinguish, her election 
Hath sealed thee for herself: for thou hast been' 
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing; 
A man that Fortune's buffets and rewards 
Hath ta'en with equal thanks : and blest are those 
Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled 
That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger 
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man 
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him 
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart, 
As I do thee." 

I have turned aside from the story of the play to 
speak of the close friendship between Hamlet and 
Horatio. They agreed as to the King's guilt, and 
Hamlet was tempted to kill him when at one time he 
was seen at prayer; but the thought that it will not be 
revenge to send him into heaven seems repellant to 
the Christian spirit of this age. We must not forget, 
however, that that spirit of revenge was in accord 
with the times. It was the spirit shown by Claudius 
himself, who vowed revenge upon Hamlet and sought 
his death. 



HAMLET 29 

Dr. Farrar, Dean of Canterbury, once wrote that 

in the plays of Shakespeare the " sovereign truths of 

the Gospel," those "eternal verities of God's revela- 

lation," are scarcely ever out of sight, and that 

"Shakespeare's mind was saturated with the Bible." 

With what tremendous power does he warn against 

bargaining with God in favor of sinful reservation! 

Listen to the exclamations of the King as a troubled 

conscience added its tormenting accusations of his 

offence which had " the primal eldest curse upon it," 

and led him to pray : — 

"'Forgive me my foul murder' ? 
That cannot be; since I am still possess'd 
Of those effects for which I did the murder, 
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen. 
May one be pardon'd, and retain th' offence? 
In the corrupted currents of this world 
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice; 
And oft 't is seen the wicked prize itself 
Buys out the law. But 't is not so above. 
There, is no shuffling; — there the action lies 
In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd 
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, 
To give in evidence. What then? What rests? 
Try what repentance can? What can it not? 
Yet what can it when one cannot repent? 
O wretched state! O bosom black as death!" 



'My words fly up, my thoughts remain below; 
Words without thoughts never to heaven go." 

An interview between the Queen and Hamlet fol- 
lows this scene; during the interview Polonius is hid- 
den behind the arras, and is killed by Hamlet, who 



30 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

mistook him for the King. Hamlet called him a "fool- 
ish prating knave. " He was Lord Chamberlain, noted 
for his diplomacy, and he has left many terse sen- 
tences of practical wisdom, of which perhaps the one 
most often quoted is : — 

"To thine own self be true, 
And it must follow, as the night the day, 
Thou canst not then be false to any man." 

He was a man who sought "by indirections to find 
directions out"; a writer suggests that his diplomacy 
has developed such sense of security that, "if a vir- 
tuous adjective would be allowed to qualify a vicious 
noun his might be called elegant hypocrisy," for his 
principle is in this dictum, — 

"Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth." 

Both Polonius and Laertes had cautioned Ophelia 
to distrust Hamlet, — telling her to lock herself from 
his resorts, admit no messenger, receive no tokens. 
She was obedient to her father and brother, and Ham- 
let found that she was acting as a spy in the interests 
of the court; and when he had killed her father all 
chance was cut off of a future marriage. That she 
had loved Hamlet with sincerity is shown in one of 
her conversations with him — when she tells him 
she had remembrances of his which she had "longed 
long to redeliver"; that they were given her with — 

" words of so sweet breath composed 
As made the things more rich. . . . 
Take these again; for to the noble mind 
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind." 



HAMLET 31 

All of her troubles of mind and heart plunge her 
into a frenzy of excited passion and a total destruc- 
tion of her reasoning powers. She utters aimless 
broken speeches — quick transitions from gayety to 
sadness — a picture which excites our heartfelt sym- 
pathy. 

"Thought and affection, passion, hell itself 
She turns to favour and to prettiness." 

That Hamlet loved Ophelia is his solemn attesta- 
tion at her grave, when he met her brother Laertes in 
bitter contest and exclaimed: — 

" I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers 
Could not, with all their quantity of love, 
Make up my sum." 

The entry of the clowns in the churchyard scene 
breaks the intense strain produced upon the mind by 
the previous solemnity of the play; and the discussion 
of the clowns as to whether Ophelia was to be buried 
in Christian burial depending upon whether or not 
she drowned herself intentionally, Shakespeare evi- 
dently introduced as a satire upon a decision of the 
English law courts in the celebrated case of Hales vs. 
Petit, tried during the reign of Philip and Mary, the 
facts of which are as follows : — 

Sir James Hales, a judge of the Common Pleas 
Court, having been imprisoned for being concerned 
in the plot to place Lady Jane Grey upon the throne, 
and afterwards pardoned, was so affected in mind as 
to commit suicide by drowning himself in a river. 



32 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

The coroner's inquest found a verdict of felo-de-se, 
under which his body was to be buried at a cross- 
roads with a stake thrust through it, and his estates 
were forfeited to the Crown. A knotty question arose 
upon the suit of his widow for an estate by survivor- 
ship in joint tenancy, as to whether the forfeiture 
could be considered as having taken place in the life- 
time of Sir James Hales; for if it did not, she took the 
estate by survivorship. Sergeant Southcote argued 
for the lady that as long as Sir James was alive, he 
had not killed himself, and the moment that he died 
the estate vested in the widow. Sergeant Walsh, on 
the other side, argued that the forfeiture had relation 
to the act done in the party's lifetime, which was the 
cause of his death. " Upon this," he said, " the parts of 
the act are to be considered; and the act consists of 
three parts. The first is the imagination, which is a 
reflection or meditation of the mind, whether or no 
it is convenient for him to destroy himself, and what 
way it can be done. The second is the resolution, 
which is a determination of the mind to destroy him- 
self, and to do it in this or that particular way. The 
third is the perfection, which is the execution of 
what the mind has resolved to do." 

Chief Justice Dyer gave the opinion of the court, 
the conclusion of which I quote verbatim: "The fel- 
ony is attributed to the act which is always done by a 
living man and in his lifetime; for Sir James Hales was 
dead and how came he to his death? By drowning. 



HAMLET 33 

And who drowned him? Sir James Hales. And when 
did he drown him? In his lifetime. So that Sir James 
Hales, being alive, caused Sir James to die; and the 
act of the living man was the death of the dead man. 
But how can he be said to be punished alive, when the 
punishment comes after his death? Sir, this can be 
done no other way than by divesting out of him his 
title and property from the time of the act done which 
was the cause of his death, viz. the throwing himself 
into the water." 

Much subtlety was expended in this case in trying 
to find out whether Sir James went to the water or 
the water came to him. With this case in mind 
the discussion of the clowns in the churchyard will 
prove of greater interest: — 

1 Clown. — Is she to be buried in Christian burial 
that wilfully seeks her own salvation? 

2 Clown. — I tell thee she is; and therefore make 
her grave straight. The crowner hath sat on her, and 
finds it Christian burial. * 

1 Clown. — How can that be unless she drown'd 
herself in her own defence? 

9, Clown. — Why, 't is found so. 

1 Clown. — It must be se offendendo ; it cannot 
be else. For here lies the point: if I drown myself 
wittingly, it argues an act, and an act hath three 
branches: it is to act, to do, and to perform; argal, 
she drowned herself wittingly. 

2 Clown. — Nay, but hear you, goodman delver, — 



34 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

1 Clown. — Give me leave. Here lies the water; 
good. Here stands the man; good. If the man go to 
this water and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he 
goes, — mark you that? But if the water come to 
him and drown him, he drowns not himself; argal, he 
that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his 
own life. 

2 Clown. — But is this law? 

1 Clown. — Ay, marry, is 't; crowner's quest law. 

Hamlet was called upon to fulfill a solemn mission 
in avenging his father's death. How and when and 
where, he did not know. Horatio appeared to be the 
only friend upon whom he could rely. 

With the difficulties that surrounded Hamlet we 
do not wonder that he was in despair. He contem- 
plates death and its consequences as he thinks of sui- 
cide and exclaims, — 

" To be or not to be: that is the question. 
Whether 't is nobler in the mind to suffer 
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, 
And by opposing end them." 

He suspects his former schoolmates are sent by 
the King to interview him and to learn his plans. He 
tells Guildenstern : — 

"You would play upon me, you would seem to 
know my stops, you would pluck out the heart of my 
mystery, you would sound me from my lowest note to 
the top of my compass; and there is much music, ex- 



HAMLET 35 

cellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot you make 
it speak. 'Sblood, do you think that I am easier to be 
play'd on than a pipe? call me what instrument you 
will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon 
me." He calls Rosencrantz a sponge "that soaks 
up the King's countenance, his rewards, his authori- 
ties." 

Polonius imagines that he is talking with a mad- 
man as he talks with Hamlet, and follows the method 
of treating crazy people by assenting to all that Ham- 
let says. When Hamlet says, "Do you see yonder 
cloud that 's almost in shape of a camel?" Polonius 
answers, "It's like a camel, indeed." 

Hamlet. — Methinks it is like a weasel. 

Polonius. — It is backed like a weasel. 

Hamlet. — Or like a whale? 

Polonius. — Very like a whale. 

Osric, whom Hamlet calls a water fly, in the same 
way calls the weather cold and then hot just as Ham- 
let fancies it to be. 

He tells his mother : — 

"It is not madness 
That I have uttered. Bring me to the test, 
And I the matter will re- word, which madness 
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace, 
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul, 
That not your trespass but my madness speaks." 

: When the King asks, "Where is Polonius ? " Hamlet 
replies, "In heaven; send thither to see. If your mes- 



36 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

senger find him not there, seek him i' the other place 
yourself." 

The King fears him and has determined to send 
him to England, and sends with him Rosencrantz 
and Guildenstern with a sealed message. Fate enables 
Hamlet to discover the message to be for his own 
death, and this he changes by substituting the names 
of the messengers for his own in another message 
under the King's seal, which he by chance carried 
with him. It was not until the King's attempt to poi- 
son him in the contest with Laertes, which resulted 
in poisoning the Queen, that Hamlet found the long- 
looked-f or chance of killing the King for a crime that 
had now been made fully apparent to all the world. 

Hamlet exclaims as his own death draws near: — 

"Horatio, I am dead; 
Thou liv'st. Report me and my cause aright 
To the unsatisfied." 

He snatched the cup of poison from Horatio's hand 
when he was ready to drink it, exclaiming : — 

"O good Horatio, what a wounded name, 
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me! 
If thou did'st ever hold me in thy heart, 
Absent thee from felicity a while, 
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain 
To tell my story." 

These words do not sound like the words of madness, 
and Horatio's lips are now unsealed from the promise 
of silence placed upon them by Hamlet, — and he 
reports Hamlet's side : — 



HAMLET ' 37 

" Let me speak to the yet unknowing world 
How these things came about. So shall you hear 
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts; 
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters: 
Of deaths put on by cunning and forc'd cause, a 
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook 
Fall'n on th' inventors' heads; all this can I 
Truly deliver." 

Professor Richard G. Moulton, the author of the 
"Moral System of Shakespeare," and a thoughtful 
critic of this play, expresses astonishment at the as- 
sumption that Hamlet was insane. "As a first ele- 
ment we have the assumed madness of Hamlet him- 
self — Hamlet was not mad. At the beginning of the 
story, even before the excitement of the ghost scene, 
the hero appears as a man of bitter irony veiling a 
tone of feeling with an opposite tone of expression. 
As Horatio says : — 

My Lord, I came to see your father's funeral, 
Hamlet replies: — 

I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow student. 
I think it was to see my mother's wedding. 

Horatio. — Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon. 

Hamlet. — Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral bak'd-meats 
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables. - 

"In studying this play, we must always remem- 
ber that it was written for the entertainment of spec- 
tators in a theatre. The introduction of the ghost 
of Hamlet's father does not necessarily imply that 
Shakespeare was a believer in their existence in the 
natural world. It would not impress spectators with 



38 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

the same effect, to hear an actor state that his con- 
science had just received a spiritual communication 
from the other world, as to see a representation of the 
spiritual messenger upon the stage in bodily form." 

I am indebted to Professor Moulton for his sug- 
gestions that "supernatural manifestations cannot 
deflect men from a course of action; they can but give 
them a touch of impetus. The popular feeling is that 
communications from the unseen world, if such things 
can be, must be most powerful motives in human ac- 
tion. Powerful such supernatural interference would 
be in disturbing the imagination ; but it is the regular 
order of natural influences which alone can govern 
action." Shakespeare's treatment of the supernatural 
is but a comment on the text : " If they hear not Moses 
and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded 
though one rose from the dead." 

"Supernatural agency has a place in the world of 
Shakespeare. Among the forces of life it has no power 
except to accentuate what already exists; but it has 
great power to illuminate life for those who are 
life's spectators, to express a principle of drama in 
language of the theatre. On the stage of human life 
man is the only actor; to supernatural agency it is 
given to manoeuvre the footlights." 

A comparison has been made between the trage- 
dies of Shakespeare and those of ^Eschylus. One of 
the greatest tragedies written by Greek authors was 
"Prometheus Bound," in which iEschylus created one 



HAMLET 39 

of the sublimest pictures ever painted of resistance to 
oppression and unselfish devotion to humanity. By 
suffering, men shall learn : this is the dominant ethical 
idea of iEschylus. Prometheus suffered, but the forces 
which caused him physical pain were forces from 
without. Hamlet suffered intensely, but from a source 
within. Hamlet was undoubtedly Shakespeare's fa- 
vorite character; no one ever knew a Hamlet, but 
his ideal is studied because of its intense revelation 
of individual human life, which surpasses all other 
characters. 

The long procession of care-encumbered men who 
have crossed bridges of doubt, despondency, and 
despair, — 

"Who have borne the whips and scorns of time, 
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, 
The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay, 
The insolence of office, and the spurns 
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes," — 

all these will find in Hamlet their own mental photo- 
graph brought out in living colors. 

"Hamlet is the great type of the inner life prepon- 
derating over the life without. Above all things he 
is the man of introspection; his luminous subtlety in 
self -analysis has made this the classical poem of soul 
philosophy. . . . The tragedy of ' Hamlet ' is that to 
the ideal man of the life within is intrusted a bold 
enterprise of the life without. . . . The whole play of 
'Hamlet ' is a rich blend of three elements: character, 



40 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

accident, nemesis are here all interwoven. And the 
sense of overruling Providence to which such coope- 
ration points has never been more aptly phrased than 
in the famous saying of Hamlet, — 

"' There's a divinity that shapes our ends, 
Rough-hew them how we will.' " 



MACBETH 

Could Shakespeare have looked with prophetic 
glance into futurity and have seen what flowers would 
bloom and what fruit would be gathered from the seed 
he had sown in the sixteenth century, his mind would 
have been filled with wonder, pride, and exaltation. 
He would have seen the plays which he so hastily pre- 
pared for the temporary pleasure of the patrons of the 
Globe Theatre of London, winning alike the admira- 
tion of the crowded theatres of the world in succeed- 
ing centuries and the close attention of scholars and 
readers in academic halls and cultured homes among 
all nations. He wrote for all ages and for coming time. 
Like a great prophet he did not foresee the import and 
effect of his own utterances. For the materials of the 
play of "Macbeth," to which our attention is turned 
to-night, it is generally thought that Shakespeare 
turned to Holinshed's history. Macbeth's name also 
appears in Hume's History of England, where we 
learn that Duncan was king of Scotland in the middle 
of the eleventh century. He was a man of gentle dis- 
position, but possessed not the genius for governing 
a country so turbulent and so much infested by the 
intrigues and animosities of the great. Macbeth was a 
powerful nobleman and nearly allied to the crown, 
but, not content with curbing the King's authority, 



42 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

he carried still further his pestilent ambition and put 
his sovereign to death, chased Malcolm Kenmore, the 
King's son and heir, into England, and usurped the 
crown. Siward, whose daughter was married to Dun- 
can, embraced by Edward's orders the protection of 
this distressed family, marched an army into Scot- 
land, and having defeated and killed Macbeth in bat- 
tle, restored Malcolm to the throne of his ancestors. 

The supernatural machinery of the three witches 
accorded with King James's superstitious faith in 
demonology. The dramatist lavished his sympathy 
on Banquo, King James's ancestor, while Macbeth's 
vision of kings "who carry twofold balls and treble 
sceptres" plainly adverted to the union of Scotland 
with England and Ireland under King James's sway. 
The allusion by the porter to the equivocator who 
committed treason was perhaps suggested by the no- 
torious defense of the doctrine of equivocation made 
by the Jesuit Henry Garnett, who was executed early 
in 1606 for his participation in the Gunpowder Plot. 

This play has always been of interest to the legal 
profession, dealing as it does with the history of a 
crime from its inception to its conclusion, disclosing 
in its progress the motives of crime, the rewards and 
honors promised, the consummation reached, and 
the ruinous consequences which retributive justice 
meted out upon the offender. 

The moralist also finds among the characters of 
this play an interesting study of the dire effects of sin 



MACBETH 43 

upon human life, its transforming effect when once 
satanic influences have entered in and taken posses- 
sion of the heart and soul of man and dragged him 
down to perdition. 

The psychologist, too, will take delight in studying 
the several characters, watching with other students 
of the great dramatist "the changing color of the 
waves that break across the idle sea-shore of the 
mind," when fiercely swept by blasts of ambition, 
passion, or remorse. 

That Shakespeare believed in the existence of a 
close relation between the natural and spiritual worlds 
is shown in the introduction into different plays of a 
supernatural element, ever influencing and control- 
ling minds with which they were brought in contact. 
" Hamlet " and " Macbeth " are perhaps the two plays 
most read and most admired, and in each the super- 
natural element is introduced. In Hamlet, the play 
opens with the introduction of the Ghost returning 
from the other world to reveal to a dutiful son the 
secret murder of a devoted father and king; to urge 
him to avenge the murder and punish the criminal. 
The play of "Macbeth" begins with the introduction 
of those weird mysterious visitors from the spirit land 
whose incantations, with mysterious and prophetic 
greetings, exercise a mighty and controlling influence 
upon those who are brought under their enchanting 
sway. Whether Shakespeare believed in witches or 
not I do not know: it is certain that at the time this 



44 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

play was written, in the early dawn of the seven- 
teenth century, the belief in witches and their posses- 
sion of supernatural power was quite general in Scot- 
land. By their use Shakespeare found an important 
element to illustrate the characters of his drama, and 
we ought never to forget that its object is "to hold 
as 't were the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her 
own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age 
and body of the time his form and pressure." 

If we divine the dramatist's intention aright, it was 
to enable the spectator to look with him into the seeds 
of time and see the gradual growth of the grain until 
its full maturity. Outside appearances are not a true 
test of character; the thoughts of a man cannot be 
seen; and to illustrate them by some symbol which 
will exhibit their power over the subject and display 
their inward nature, the weird sisters took their place 
in different scenes. They are Satan's minions, minis- 
ters of his that do his pleasure, sent out from his king- 
dom; of uncouth shape and mysterious origin, ugly to 
look upon, yet possessed of magnetic power, holding 
their subjects spellbound by their utterances. What 
better representation could be made to a spectator of 
the first uprisings in the mind of Macbeth of those sin- 
ful thoughts and imaginations which so mysteriously 
appeared, won his attention, swayed him with a des- 
potic power, and urged him on to the commission of 
an enormous crime? 

Macbeth had been a victorious leader in quelling a 



MACBETH 45 

rebellion against his sovereign; the rebellion is now 
transferred to his own soul. His conduct in the king- 
dom had won for him advancement and honor. He 
had saved the kingdom from destruction and the 
King himself from complete overthrowal. Why should 
he not succeed him and be king himself? It is at such 
a time that Ambition comes in, his inmost thoughts 
are voiced and echoed by those mysterious visitors 
who so suddenly greet Banquo and himself on their 
homeward journey with the words, — 

"All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee Thane of Glamis!" 
"All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee Thane of Cawdor!" 
"All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter!" 

"As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." The 
thoughts of Macbeth by these utterances were stirred 
to their lowest depths, with hopes of advancement to 
obtain the crown; new honors came successively upon 
him and the greatest was behind. His imagination 
was influenced; great possibilities lay in the future to 
which fate and metaphysical aid summoned him. His 
wife should know of it at once; as he was climbing up 
the rounds of the ladder to obtain the sovereignty 
desired, she should learn of his present success and of 
the prophetic greetings which foretold coming great- 
ness. He writes at once to her that the weird sisters 
had saluted him with "Hail, King that shalt be!" 
"This," said Macbeth, "... I thought good to 
deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness, that 
thou mightst not lose the dues of rejoicing by being 



46 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it 
to thy heart and farewell." 

The message found an apt and ready sympathizer. 
In the soliloquy which follows I find a revelation of 
wickedness which disclosed Lady Macbeth's heart 
to be as black as, if not blacker than, that of Mac- 
beth. What wife is there who knows not her hus- 
band's merits and demerits, his faults and favors, his 
virtues and his vices? Lady Macbeth, too, has stud- 
ied and knows well her husband's character; she fears 
his nature. 

"It is too full o' the milk of human kindness 
To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great, 
Art not without ambition, but without 
The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly 
That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false, 
And yet wouldst wrongly win." 

She wishes his presence, to control him. 

"Hie thee hither, 
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear, 
And chastise with the valour of my tongue 
All that impedes thee from the golden round 
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem 
To have thee crown'd withal." 

To her aid she summons the powers of darkness. 

"Come, you spirits 
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, 
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full 
Of direst cruelty." 

Macbeth's imagination was intense, but he lacked 
resolution. Not so Lady Macbeth. She had been a 



MACBETH 47 

mother, but she would have dashed her suckling child 
to the ground to fulfill her wicked purpose; and says 
that had not the King resembled her father as he 
slept, she would have murdered Duncan herself. It 
was Lady Macbeth's ambition to share with her lord 
a kingly crown. His letter had aroused in her mind a 
rising storm of villainy, disclosing how wickedly and 
how cruelly she could act when the occasion called. 
The longed-for conference with her husband comes. 

"There's no art 
To find the mind's construction in the face" 

of a studied pretender, and she chides her husband 

for his tell-tale face, tells him to — 

"Look like the innocent flower, 
But be the serpent under it." 

With most suppliant grace she welcomes King Dun- 
can to her attractive castle; she is studiously attentive 
to the wants of all, and gives them a royal welcome. 
In her guest's absence she reinforces her husband's 
wavering resolutions and spurs him on to commit the 
horrible crime. Amid the silence of the night she pre- 
pares the drink to excite the senses of her husband and 
nerve him to action. When all is ready, she strikes the 
bell which sounds the muffled knell of Duncan, that 
summons him to heaven or to hell. 

It has been the fortune of the writer to witness the 
portrayal of the scenes in "Macbeth" upon different 
occasions, but never with such artistic and careful de- 
tail as when presented at Abbey's Theatre in New 



48 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

York City at the time of a former visit of Henry Irv- 
ing. Promptly at eight o'clock the lights in orchestra, 
balcony, and family circle were extinguished, and as 
the curtain rose upon a dimly lighted stage, the shad- 
owy and weird forms of the three witches, with mov- 
ing wands and incantations dire, were seen upon the 
heath awaiting the coming of Macbeth and Banquo. 
The lights were kept out in the auditorium through- 
out the entire play and the scenes of the ill-fated 
night were pictured with wonderful skill by a master 
hand. 

Circumstances have brought the King to Macbeth's 
castle. Macbeth's most intimate household friend 
and partner aids him by her counsels, and his excited 
imagination sees the instrument at hand ready for 
execution as a dagger hangs suspended before him in 
mid-air, which, though but a dagger of the mind, 
seems a living reality to him. The prophetic voices 
which had greeted him upon the heath still ring in his 
ears and urge him to immediate action. He had at 
first hesitated, but had now grown desperate and 
"the firstlings of his heart became the firstlings of his 
hand." 

With slow and stealthy step he enters the King's 
bed-chamber and commits the murder. After the 
tragic deed is done, Macbeth rejoins his waiting wife 
with a terrified look. The guilty couple start at every 
noise; whispering and listening they stand awestricken 
in the hall of the castle. As Irving and Miss Terry 



MACBETH 49 

appeared upon the stage, fear held them spellbound. 
The footlights of the stage reflected from their eyes a 
strange, wild, and horrible glare, startling the specta- 
tor with their look of terror; their silence and their 
expression spoke volumes as they stood affrighted 
and looked out into the darkness from which a thou- 
sand spectators were silently watching every move- 
ment. It was indeed a triumph of dramatic art; a 
vivid spectacle and an impressive exemplification of 
the power which a guilty conscience exerts upon its 
possessors as guilty fears and fearful imaginings pos- 
sess and terrify them. The silence of the night makes 
a strong contrast to the noisy din calling the sleeping 
tenants from their chambers. Lady Macbeth is ready 
with her expressions of surprise and horror at the 
deed. She would divert suspicion from Macbeth and 
herself, and when Macduff exclaims, "Our royal mas- 
ter 's murdered!" Lady Macbeth replies, "Woe, alas! 
What, in our house ? " At which unfortunate remark 
Banquo immediately suspects her and answers, "Too 
cruel anywhere." 

The death of Duncan as the nation's head awak- 
ened quick sympathy in the hearts of his loyal sub- 
jects, as Macbeth feared it would when they recalled 
his noble virtues. The words uttered then have never 
been repeated since with a more appreciative tribute 
to a departed ruler, than when Governor Andrew 
in the Massachusetts Legislature applied them to our 
martyred President Lincoln. 



50 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

"Besides, this Duncan 
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been 
So clear in his great office, that his virtues 
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against 
The deep damnation of his taking-off; 
And pity like a naked new-born babe 
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin horsed 
Upon the sightless couriers of the air, 
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, 
That tears shall drown the wind." 

The King was dead but not his sons : Macbeth finds 
but " a barren sceptre in his gripe," and victim after 
victim is put to death in his endeavor to seat himself 
securely upon the throne. He had stifled the voice of 
conscience, and he'd "jump the life to come, ,, but 
still feared punishment here. The desperation of 
Saul in ancient story led him to seek the Witch of 
Endor for counsel and comfort; with like mind Mac- 
beth hurried to the weird sisters as threatening defeat 
hung over him. He moves and acts like a melancholy 
man, unhappy, impelled by fate, and as Irving repre- 
sents him at last, his sword is wielded with the action 
of a man who moves mechanically about, without 
hope, without ambition, his fond anticipations shat- 
tered and overthrown. 

In studying Macbeth's character we find him 
swayed more by imagination than by judgment; he 
feared punishment more than the pangs of a guilty 
conscience. He was not as studied as his wife in out- 
ward conduct. Lady Macbeth continually chided 
him to avoid an appearance indicative of guilt. She 



MACBETH 51 

was merry at the feast, cordially welcomed the guests, 
and excused with all the grace possible the wild actions 
of her forgetful lord as he imagined he saw Banquo's 
ghost take the vacant seat at the table. What she so 
carefully concealed when awake she could not hide 
when asleep; and even when awake she found no com- 
fort in her anticipated joy. 

"Nought 's had, all's spent, 
Where our desire is got without content; 
'T is safer to be that which we destroy, 
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy." 

Slumber brought no quiet to her troubled breast. 
"More needed she the divine than the human physi- 
cian." The night-walking scene revealed the am- 
bitious woman still struggling with the guilty secret, 
which tormented its possessor. Seeing blood upon the 
little hand, a spot which would not out; black-hearted, 
conscience-stricken, worn out with watching, fears, 
and the tortures of a sin-burdened soul, she passed 
from life's troubled stage. 

For Macbeth, minions of Satan held out false lights 
for him to follow. The great temptation described in 
Milton's "Paradise Lost" was reenacted in his ca- 
reer. To Adam, the Devil had said, "Thou shalt not 
surely die." To Macbeth, these false spirits cried out, 

"Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn 
The power of man; for none of woman born 
Shall harm Macbeth. 



Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until 
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill 
Shall come against him." 



52 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

He believes himself to be a creature of Fate and Des- 
tiny, and in this respect becomes a victim of the dark- 
est tragedy. "The bitterest tragic element in life," 
says Emerson, "to be derived from an intellectual 
source, is the belief in a brute fate or Destiny, the 
belief that the order of nature and events is controlled 
by a law not adapted to man, nor man to that, but 
which holds on its way to the end, serving him, if his 
wishes chance to lie in the same course, crushing him 
if his wishes lie contrary to it, and heedless whether it 
serves or crushes him. This is the terrible meaning 
that lies at the foundation of the old Greek tragedy 
and makes QEdipus and Antigone and Orestes objects 
of such hopeless commiseration. The same idea 
makes the paralyzing terror with which the East In- 
dian mythology haunts the imagination; the same 
thought is the predestination of the Turk." 

It is such an incentive as dominates Mohammedan 
followers in their ruthless slaughter of innocent Chris- 
tians; death in battle being the way to Paradise in the 
Turk's creed. Powerful was the effect of the murder 
upon others but greater upon the murderers, Macbeth 
and his wife, themselves. After the commission of the 
murder, every noise appalls them, they live in a world 
of suspense and darkness. At this time is heard the 
knocking at the gate which Thomas De Quincey ar- 
gues, in his essay on the subject, to be a studied effect 
of the great dramatist to expound action and measure 
it by its reaction. The knocking at the gate is the evi- 



MACBETH 53 

dence of life, of the existence of a living, bustling world 
to which we are called back again after we have been 
carried into a world of darkness, silence, and death. 

At this point the drunken porter comes in, who 
with his companion had caroused until early morning: 
he holds an imaginary dialogue with several persons 
who are supposed to be seeking admission to the other 
world; welcoming the "farmer that hang'd himself on 
the expectation of plenty "; awaiting "an equivocator 
that could swear in both the scales against either 
scale, who committed treason enough for God's sake, 
yet could not equivocate to Heaven." The knocking 
at the gate is a change and contrast to offset the great 
strain brought upon the feelings of the spectator by 
the solemnity of the murder, and from a world of 
silence we are brought back to a world of activity and 
life. 

The coming of Irving and his interpretation of the 
play have caused much discussion among Shakespear- 
ean students as to where the guilt most belonged for 
the murder of King Duncan. It has in the past been 
the theory of most scholars that Macbeth was incited 
to commit the deed by the instigation of the witches 
and the counsel of his wife. She has been character- 
ized as a Jezebel, cruel, unrelenting, unkind, and sav- 
age, Macbeth being only a pliant tool in her hands 
ready to do her bidding. Irving, however, claims that 
Macbeth throughout the play moves as a hypocrite, 
that he was a murderer from the beginning, and that 



54 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

he and not Lady Macbeth should receive the greatest 
censure. He cites Holinshed's history, from which the 
characters of the play are taken, to corroborate his 
theory. He also cites passages from the play itself; 
says that it is the generally received opinion that Mac- 
beth was a good man who had gone wrong under the 
influence of a wicked and dominant wife, a tradition 
that has been in force for many years and was due 
mainly to the powerful rendering of the character of 
Lady Macbeth by Mrs. Siddons, whose strong per- 
sonality lent itself to the view of an exceedingly pow- 
erful and dominant woman. In his opinion, however, 
Shakespeare has in his text given us in Macbeth one 
of the most bloody-minded hypocritical villains in all 
his long gallery of portraits of men filled with the 
vices of their kind. It cannot be denied that he 
became the kind of villain Irving has described, but 
I am led to believe he became so under the dom- 
ineering and all-powerful influence of his wife, who 
breathed out the threatenings and poison which 
contaminated his mind and soul. Her first exclama- 
tion after reading Macbeth's letter describing his 
meeting with the witches was — 

" Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be 
What thou art promis'd. Yet do I fear thy nature; 
It is too full of the milk of human kindness 
To catch the nearest way. . . . 

Hie thee hither 
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear, 
And chastise with the valour of my tongue 



MACBETH 55 

All that impedes thee from the golden round 
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem 
To have thee crown'd withal." 

She calls on spirits to unsex her and fill her with 
direst cruelty; calls on night to conceal her that her 
keen knife see not the wound it makes, nor Heaven 
see her deed of guilt. She tells Macbeth that his face 
betrays his purpose and gives him repeated instruc- 
tions in the art of hypocrisy. She welcomes her royal 
guest with most lavish praise and flattery. Macbeth's 
soliloquies before the commission of the crime show 
hesitation and such fear of punishment as would pre- 
vent him from committing the crime. He tells his 
wife, — 

" We will proceed no further in this business," 

but it is her valorous tongue that reassures him and 
urges him forward by methods of hypocrisy which 
she herself originates. A man may play the hypocrite 
when seen of men, but when communing with his own 
soul in solitude his thoughts are real, not pretended. 
So imagination and conscience speak loudly to Mac- 
beth when alone and fear of punishment threatens 
and deters him; he recalls the duty to his guest and 
sovereign; the high regard in which he is held by his 
subjects, is almost ready to give up the plan when the 
stinging words of his wife turn him from his wavering 
course. 

"Was the hope drunk 

Wherein you dress'd yourself? Hath it slept since? 

And wakes it now to look so green and pale 



56 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

At what it did so freely? From this time 
Such I account thy love." 

That the plan had been previously talked over be- 
fore his letter to her, is shown in his wife's words, — 

"Nor time nor place 
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both." 

She had said before this : — 

"You shall put 
This night's great business into my dispatch." 

She tells her plan to put upon the drunken chamber- 
lains the suspicion of the murder, to clear Macbeth 
and herself; her appeal to his love and the disclosure 
of her plan persuade the hesitating man. The same 
appeal to their manhood Macbeth makes to the mur- 
derers of Banquo; telling them it was Banquo who 
held them under. 

"Are you so gospell'd 
To pray for this good man and for his issue, 
Whose heavy hand hath bowed you to the grave?" 

Lady Macbeth has shown in the play a devotedness 
to her husband's plans which in a better cause would 
win our admiration. She too had an ambition to be 
with him, a partner in his greatness, but with her 
there were no soliloquies or heart utterances tending 
to dissuade her from the crime. She follows her own 
instructions to her husband, — 

" False face must hide what the false heart doth know." 

We cannot leave this play without noticing the re- 
tributive justice that finally overtakes the criminal. 



MACBETH 57 

Rumors of the approach of the English forces fill his 
mind with terror; he soon learns that those "juggling 
fiends " are not to be believed — 

"That palter with us in a double sense; 
That keep the word of promise to our ear. 
And break it to our hope." 

He finds his hopes blasted; his honors empty, his 
crown a curse. What a melancholy wail he utters as 
he nears the end of life: — 

" I have liv'd long enough. My way of life 
Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf; 
And that which should accompany old age, 
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, 
I must not look to have; but, in their stead, 
Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath, 
Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not." 

By night and day he had no rest. 

" But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer, 
Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep 
In the affliction of these terrible dreams 
That shake us nightly. Better be with the dead 
Whom we, to gain our place, have sent to peace, 
Than on the torture of the mind to lie 
In restless ecstasy." 

Macbeth had heard a voice cry, "Sleep no more, 
Macbeth doth murder sleep"; his night-walking 
Queen found her sleep disturbed, and in vain attempt- 
ing to rub out the bloody spot from her little hand, 
showed her mind in an unquiet state. She too could 
not endure the pangs of remorse which tormented her 
by night and day, and finally sought to escape fur- 



58 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

ther trouble by committing suicide. The Queen's 
death added another sorrow to the despondent King; 
to him, life became an empty show, — 

"a walking shadow; a poor player, 

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, 

And then is heard no more; it is a tale 

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 

Signifiying nothing." 

These are the words of the fatalist as he nears the end 
of life, having found his hopes blasted and his life a 
blank. 

Banquo had been accosted by the weird sisters as 
well as Macbeth, but he wisely repelled the wicked 
suggestions which they awakened in his mind. By 
an appeal to the higher powers he prays to be kept 
from them. 

"Merciful powers, 

Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature 

Gives way to in repose." 

As Banquo ascends the stairs in the castle on the 
evening of the fatal night, Macbeth talks of the 
greetings of the witches they both have seen, and 
suggests that if Banquo will cleave to his side, he 
shall have honor. Banquo replies : — 

"So I lose none 
In seeking to augment it, but still keep 
My bosom franchis'd, and allegiance clear, 
I shall be counsell'd." 

Banquo mistrusted the voice he had heard at one 
time, and exclaimed, "What! can the devil speak 
true ? " At another time he said : — 



MACBETH 59 

" Oftentimes, to win us to our harm 
The instruments of darkness tell us truths. 
Win us with honest trifles, to betray 's 
In deepest consequence." 

Banquo's virtue stands in worthy contrast to the 
sinful ambition of Macbeth. We turn to another play 
to read of its dangerous character when used for self- 
ish purposes alone. 

"Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition! 
By that sin fell the angels; how can man, then, 
The image of his Maker, hope to win by 't? 
Love thyself last; cherish those hearts that hate thee; i 
Corruption wins not more than honesty. 
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, 
To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not. 
Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, 
Thy God's, and truth's; then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell, 
Thou fall'st a blessed martyr! " * 

We may not meet the same uncouth visitors on our 
journey as those which stopped Macbeth and Banquo, 
but evil thoughts will often rise suddenly to meet us 
on our way; our imaginations may call up to our 
minds suggestions as impressive as if uttered by the 
weird sisters. This play teaches the importance of 
making a correct choice when different plans present 
themselves. We must choose, and upon the result of 
our choice depends the happiness or misery of our 
lives. Macbeth will always live in poetry as a power- 
ful example of what remorse there is in a character, 
built on acts of crime or wickedness. It is a play of 
1 King Henry VIII, Act iii, Sc. 2. 



60 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

action and it is filled with passages of tenderness as 
well as passion. The spectator or reader of the play 
will never forget the terrible contest waged by con- 
science against sin, and the terrible consequences 
which result from wrong decisions. 

"Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, 
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; 
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or 

blight, 
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right; 
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that 

light.". 



OTHELLO 

We were favored a short time ago with an interest- 
ing and instructive essay upon "Richard III." In 
the discussion following the reading we were inter- 
ested in the comparison made of the interest taken 
by the Germans in Shakespeare's plays with that 
shown by the American public, before whom but few 
of these plays are presented. In support of the opin- 
ions expressed I find that during the year 1897 the 
performance of twenty-four plays reached a total of 
nine hundred and thirty, an average of nearly three 
Shakespearean representations a day in the German- 
speaking districts of Europe. Does not this illustrate, 
in one branch of study at least, the truth of expressed 
opinion that the German intellect is superior to the 
American in study and habits of thought, and are 
they not the gainers in giving attention to those plays 
which the wisest have pronounced as most deserving 
of study? 

The play most popular with the Germans is 
"Othello," if we may judge by the number of times 
it was acted as compared with others; for it headed 
the list in the years 1896 and 1897 in Germany, hav- 
ing been acted one hundred and thirty-five times in 
1896 and one hundred and twenty-one times in 1897, 
while "Hamlet" was acted ninety-one times, "Romeo 



62 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

and Juliet" one hundred and eighteen, "King Lear" 
thirty-four, "Macbeth" twelve, and "Richard III" 
twenty-six times. 

"Othello" is one of the plays found among the 
latest of Shakespeare's masterpieces. Age and experi- 
ence had sharpened his intellect, widened his know- 
ledge, and revealed to his master mind greater insight 
into the workings of the mind and heart of mankind. 
His earlier plays were those of comedy, while the 
later were of tragedy. 

The greater part of Shakespeare's plays were not 
published until after his death. The reason of the 
delay in such publication is found in the manner and 
purpose of their origin. Shakespeare was employed 
by the managers of the London theatres to make over 
old plays, to revive scenes and incidents of former 
days in reproductions and enlargements, giving to the 
different characters a life and attractiveness sur- 
passing former productions. Had these plays been 
immediately published, the managers of the theatre 
feared that the knowledge gained by readers of the 
play would greatly lessen the interest in witnessing 
the productions as they were given in the theatre. 
This is true of " Othello," it having been written by 
Shakespeare in 1604 and published in 1623. It was 
doubtless the first new piece that was acted before 
King James, and it was presented at Whitehall, 
November 1, 1604. 
i The plot comes from an Italian collection of novels, 



OTHELLO 63 

Giraldi Cinthio's "Hecatommithi," which was first 
published in 1565 (the year after Shakespeare's birth). 
Cinthio's story of Othello is not known to have been 
translated into English before Shakespeare drama- 
tized it, and this is one of the evidences showing 
Shakespeare's acquaintance with other languages 
besides his own. 

The play was written six years before he died, when 
Shakespeare was about forty years of age and in the 
maturity of his powers. The chief characters are 
Othello, Iago, and Desdemona, and in their history the 
dramatist has portrayed the working of the noblest 
and basest passions of human life. The drama treats 
of the dealings of a most notorious villain with noble, 
honest, and unsuspecting people. It has made the 
name of Iago a type of the basest of the human spe- 
cies, by malignity and baseness plotting to break 
up the happiness of established domestic bliss and 
the most sacred foundations of human society, sep- 
arating by his machinations hearts bound together 
by the most solemn vows of wedlock and united by 
the strongest bonds of love and affection: wickedly 
sundering the tie by introducing unfounded suspi- 
cions and jealousies which were the inventions of 
an unscrupulous and devilish intellect. Iago was a 
young man of twenty-eight years, while Othello, 
judging from his long experience in camp and field, 
was a man between forty and fifty years old. He says 
of himself that he was in the "vale of years," an ex- 



64 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

pression which Shakespeare hardly would have used 
of one younger than fifty. Iago, too, contrasts the 
youth of Desdemona with the age of Othello, and tells 
Roderigo that Desdemona will tire of him who, for 
her, lacks sympathy of years. 

Desdemona was found in an Italian home, where 
early marriages were common, Juliet being but 
fourteen at the time of her marriage with Romeo. 
Brabantio, the father of Desdemona, speaks of her 
"delicate youth," and says she was one who " shunned 
the wealthy curled darlings of our nation"; and he 
little thought the rehearsal of the dangers and suffer- 
ings of an old soldier would awaken any chords of 
love in the heart of his young daughter, ending in an 
elopement and by grief shortening the father's life. 

It is an interesting study to trace the many causes 
and influences set at work in this pathetic story of 
love and estrangement. The first evil influence seen 
at work is envy; this we learn from the first conversa- 
tion of Iago with Roderigo. Othello had appointed 
Cassio as his lieutenant, instead of Iago, who had ap- 
plied for the place. Cassio was one, Iago says, — 

"That never set a squadron in the field, 
Nor the division of a battle knows 
More than a spinster," 

while Iago, — 

" of whom his eyes had seen the proof 
At Rhodes, at Cyprus, and on other ground, 
Christen'd and heathen," 

must be set aside. 



OTHELLO 65 

We find, then, envy first at work in Iago, and its 
nature is well described by Bacon when he says that 
"a man that hath no virtue in himself ever envieth 
virtue in others; for men's minds will either feed upon 
their own good or upon others' evil; and who wanteth 
the one will prey upon the other; and whoso is out of 
hope to attain another's virtue will seek to come at 
even hand, by depressing another's fortune. It is also 
the vilest affection and the most depraved, for which 
cause it is the proper attribute of the devil, who is 
called the envious man that soweth tares amongst the 
wheat by night, as it always cometh to pass that envy 
worketh subtilely and in the dark and to the preju- 
dice of good things such as is the wheat." 

The displacement of Cassio, we find, then, is the 
first motive influencing Iago, and to attain this end 
he follows Othello as his ancient in an inferior posi- 
tion of service, and in following him he says that he 
follows but himself, — 

" not I for love and duty, 
But seeming so, for my peculiar end. 
... I am not what I am." 

To carry out his plans he uses that dupe Roderigo, 
who has plenty of money but few brains, and who be- 
comes as clay in the hands of the potter under Iago's 
influence, bombastic talk, and pretences. Iago says 
of him : — 

"For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane, 

If I would time expend with such a snipe, 

But for my sport and profit." 



66 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

The elopement of Othello with Brabantio's daugh- 
ter causes the father to make complaint to the Senate 
when convened, before which Othello makes such an 
eloquent plea that the Duke exclaims : — 

"I think this tale would win my daughter too." 

The Duke gives some sound advice to the angry 
father as a step to help these lovers into his favor. 

"When remedies are past, the griefs are ended 
By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended. 
To mourn a mischief that is past and gone 
Is the next way to draw new mischief on. 
What cannot be preserv'd when fortune takes. 
Patience her injury a mockery makes. 
The robb'd that smiles, steals something from the thief; 
He robs himself that spends a bootless grief." 

Iago, while pretending to act for Roderigo in at- 
tempting to effect an estrangement between Desde- 
mona and Othello, and to secure Desdemona's love 
for Roderigo, discloses his vile purpose in the soliloquy 
at the end of the first act, when he says that he hates 
the Moor, and that it is thought abroad that in his 
(Iago's) home he has done him wrong: — 

"I know not if 't be true; 
But I, for mere suspicion in that kind, 
Will do as if for surety. He holds me well; 
The better shall my purpose work on him. 



The Moor is of a free and open nature, 
That thinks men honest that but seem to be 
And will as tenderly be led by the nose 
As asses are." 



OTHELLO 67 

It was a divine injunction to the disciples, when 
sent into the world by the Master as sheep among 
wolves, to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. 
A knowledge of evil is necessary for the protection of 
virtue, for, as Bacon says, " It is not possible to join 
serpentine wisdom with the columbine innocence ex- 
cept we know all the conditions of the serpent, his 
baseness, his envy and sting, for without such know- 
ledge, virtue lieth open and unfenced." To displace 
Cassio, Iago watches the opportunity to cause him to 
be found in a midnight quarrel, brought on by an ex- 
cessive drunken carousal, which in its origin and con- 
sequences, makes the narration a most powerful tem- 
perance sermon. The good-natured Cassio knew that 
he ought not to partake, but the claims of good- 
fellowship, and lack of courtesy to refuse, overcame 
his scruples. It is the same scene repeated to-day, 
although the names of the actors are different. Iago, 
devil-like, knows Cassio's weakness and so approaches 
him : — 

Iago. Come, lieutenant, I have a stoup of wine; 
and here without are a brace of Cyprus gallants that 
would fain have a measure to the health of Black 
Othello. 

Cassio. Not to-night, good Iago. I have very 
poor and unhappy brains for drinking; I could well 
wish courtesy would invent some other custom of 
entertainment. 



68 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

I ago. O, they are our friends. But one cup; I'll 
drink for you. 

Cassio. I have drunk but one cup to-night and 
that was craftily qualified too, and behold what inno- 
vation it makes here. I am unfortunate in the infirm- 
ity, and dare not task my weakness with any more. 

I ago. What, man! 't is a night of revels. The 
gallants desire it. 

Cassio. Where are they? 

Iago. Here at the door; I pray you, call them in. 

Cassio. I'll do't; but it dislikes me. 

Hear upon this the tempter's soliloquy: — 

" If I can fasten but one cup upon him, 

With that which he hath drunk to-night already, 
: He'll be as full of quarrel and offence 
As my young mistress' dog. 

If consequence do but approve my dream. 

My boat sails freely, both with wind and stream." 

Cassio's loud wail over a lost reputation will always 
be known as a voice of warning: — 

"O thou invisible spirit of Wine, if thou hast no 
name to be known by, let us call thee devil! ... I 
remember a mass of things but nothing distinctly; a 
quarrel but nothing wherefore. O God, that men 
should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away 
their brains! That we should with joy, pleasance, 
revel, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts ! " 

Othello hears attentively Iago's specious plea for 
Cassio, and replies : — 



OTHELLO 69 

"I know, Iago, 
Thy honesty and love doth mince this matter, 
Making it light to Cassio." 

But turning to Cassio, he says : — 

' Cassio, I love thee, 
But never more be officer of mine." 

The first part of Iago's plot has been accomplished, 
and Cassio is displaced as Othello's lieutenant. Next, 
Iago uses Cassio, in his interviews with Desdemona 
for his reinstatement, to awaken those terrible sus- 
picions and imaginations and jealousies which caused 
Othello to condemn Desdemona to her sad death, and 
the method of it is advised by Iago. 

Othello says, "I'll not expostulate with her lest her 
beauty unprovide my mind again. This night, Iago." 

Iago. Do it not with poison; strangle her in her 
bed. . . . 

Othello. Good, good ; the justice of it pleases. 
Very good! 

Iago, And for Cassio, let me be his undertaker. 
You shall hear more by midnight. 

Later Iago sets Roderigo on to make attack upon 
Cassio, saying to himself: — 

"Now, whether he kill Cassio, 
Or Cassio him, or each do kill the other, 
Every way makes my gain. Live Roderigo, 
He calls me to a restitution large 
Of gold and jewels that I bobb'd from him, 
As gifts to Desdemona; 
It must not be. If Cassio do remain, 



70 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

He hath a daily beauty in his life 
That makes me ugly; and, besides, the Moor 
May unfold me to him; there stand I in such peril. 
No, he must die." 

The conflict takes place between Roderigo and 
Cassio, whose loud cries of murder remind Othello of 
Iago's previous promise, and he exclaims : — 

"'Tis he! — O brave Iago, honest and just, 
That hast such noble sense of thy friend's wrong! 
Thou teachest me. Minion, your dear lies dead, 
And you unblest fate hies; strumpet, I come. 
Forth of my heart those chains, thine eyes, are blotted." 

There was but one living soul who could reveal 
Iago's villainy, and that was Iago's wife. He had 
counted on keeping her quiet, but caustic and severe 
were her upbraidings of Othello. 

"O murderous coxcomb! What should such a fool 
Do with so good a wife? . . . 
Moor, she was chaste. She loved thee, cruel Moor; 
So come my soul to bliss as I speak true; 
So speaking as I think, alas, I die!" 

What agony is shown in the latest utterances of 
Othello as the truth breaks in upon his shattered 
mind! 

"Where should Othello go? 
Now, how dost thou look now? O ill-starr'd wench! 
Pale as thy smock! when we shall meet at compt, 
This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven, 
And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my girl! 
Even like thy chastity. O cursed, cursed slave! 
Whip me, ye devils, 
From the possession of this heavenly sight! 



OTHELLO 71 

Blow me about in winds! roast me in sulphur! 
Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire! 
Desdemona! dead, Desdemona! dead! 
Oh! Oh!" 

As he looks upon Iago, the cause of all his troubles, 
he exclaims : — 

"I look down towards his feet. [No cloven feet were seen.] But 

that's a fable. 
If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee." 

To Cassio he says, of Iago: — 

" Demand that demi-devil 
Why he hath thus ensnared my soul and body." 

Iago's reply was this: — 

"Demand me nothing; what you know, you know. 
From this time forth I never will speak word." 

Lodovico consigns him to deserved punishment: — ■ 

"For this slave, 
If there be any cunning cruelty 
That can torment him much and hold him long, 
It shall be his." 

The Nemesis which the Greeks portrayed as always 
coming to avenge wrong and injuries done, and to 
restore rights to the true owner, comes in at the 
close of the play, and Cassio, the one against whom 
lago's schemes were first set in motion, becomes 
Governor of Cyprus. 

This play, like others of Shakespeare, is marked by 
the contrasts it sets forth in the different characters 
presented. What high and what low conceptions of 



72 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

love and marriage are here set forth! on this differ- 
ence, we quote the words of another : * — 

"In our lives virtue and vice are blended. All our 
desires and affections are legitimate in proper use and 
licentious only in their abuse. Janus-faced Love is 
intimately allied with both sides of man's nature. 
When awakened by moral beauty its nature is pure, 
but when excited by physical and personal beauty 
alone, then it is sensual and selfish." 

This contrast is presented in this play with a 
strength that repels some readers. Iago's intellectual 
dexterity and Desdemona's moral goodness are all 
but perfect in their respective kinds, however much 
Iago may lack morality and Desdemona worldly 
knowledge. 

Let us notice the different views expressed by these 
characters, which show the high or low nature of their 
minds. Iago sneers at the suggestion that Desde- 
mona's love is anything else but low and sensual. He 
says that she will soon tire of following the Black 
Moor and that Roderigo will surely win her if he but 
puts money in his purse, which Iago professes he will 
use to good advantage. 

Othello places duty to the state above his dearest 
heart's love, and when Desdemona begs to accom- 
pany him upon his voyage to repel the Turks, he re- 
quests the lords to grant her request but for her satis- 
faction and — 

1 Henry J. Ruggles in From the Plays of Shakespeare. 



OTHELLO 73 

"to be free and bounteous to her mind; 
And Heaven defend your good souls, that you think 
I will your serious and great business scant 
When she is with me. No, when light wing'd toys 
Of feather'd Cupid seal with wanton dullness 
My speculative and active instruments 
That my disports corrupt and taint my business. 
Let housewives make a skillet of my helm, 
And all indign and base adversities 
Make head against my estimation!" 

Desdemona's love for Othello was so contrary to 
nature, that her father accuses him of having exer- 
cised witchcraft in securing her affection. He could 
not believe it possible for her — 

"in spite of nature, 
Of years, of country, credit, everything, 
To fall in love with what she fear'd to look on." 

The period was one when tales of adventure were 
greatly appreciated and found ready listeners, and the 
cavalier who won his lady's heart, gained it often by 
her admiration for his exploits as an adventurer and 
soldier. Othello's rehearsal of his adventures inter- 
ested the daughter as well as the father, and he be- 
came to her a hero, actuated by noble motives of 
mind and heart. As she explains her love, " She saw 
Othello's visage in his mind." In this character 
Shakespeare has portrayed, it seems to me, an idea 
embodying the highest and noblest type of love, mod- 
esty, and devotion. He has written in one of his son- 
nets, — 

"Love is not love 
That alters when it alteration finds," 



74 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 
and Desdemona fulfills that description : — 

"A maiden never bold; 
Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion 
Blush'd at herself." 

With a mind always conscious of right herself, she 
thought no evil of others, and had such delicacy of 
mind that she would not repeat the word which 
charged her with unfaithfulness. 

Desdemona. Am I that name, Iago? 

logo. What name, sweet lady? 

Desdemona. Such as she says my lord did say I was. 

Her love was so magnanimous that nothing that 
Othello did could take away her fondness for him. 
Emilia said to her : " Would you had never seen him ! " 
Whereupon Desdemona replied : — 

"So would not I. My love doth so approve him, 
That even his stubbornness, his checks, his frowns 
. . . have grace and favour in them." 

Desdemona possesses that charity which is the 
bond of perfection. She is ready to sacrifice truth 
upon the altar of love and affection to save Othello 
from censure and punishment. 

Emilia. Oh, who hath done this deed? 
Desdemona. Nobody; I myself. Farewell! 
Commend me to my kind lord. Oh, farewell! 

Such unchanging love, expressed by one so deeply 
wronged, causes a writer to remark that "it is as 
near an approach to perfection as poor human frailty 
can make and reveals a love that can only be prompted 



OTHELLO 75 

by the antithesis of a lie prompted by divine truth." 
And the quality of the act has been compared to the 
state of mind of St. Paul spoken of by Bacon in his 
essay on Goodness, when St. Paul wished to be an 
anathema from Christ, for the salvation of his breth- 
ren. Her intercessions for the reinstatement of Cassio 
to his former place are most sincere and earnest. She 
tells Cassio, — 

"What I can do I will; and more I will 
Than for myself I dare." 

In making such a promise she committed one of 
those errors of goodness of which Bacon writes, say- 
ing, "Beware how in making the portraiture thou 
breakest the pattern. For divinity maketh the love 
of ourselves the pattern, the love of our neighbor the 
portraiture." Desdemona breaks the pattern, for she 
unwittingly ruins herself in her excess of zeal for 
Cassio. 

In contrast to Desdemona's goodness, we find Iago 
one of the most hypocritical and fiendish villains ever 
seen. There are many small Iagos in existence, many 
having some, while not all, the repulsive qualities 
seen in this character. We do not see in life the in- 
ternal workings of the hidden mind, but here the 
dramatist permits us, in the soliloquies and out- 
spoken thoughts of Iago, to see the baseness of his 
heart and the fiendish glee he exhibits as he sets in 
motion his debasing plans; cautions Othello against 
jealousy, — 



76 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE^ 

"Beware, my lord, of jealousy! 
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock 
The meat it feeds on"; 

and yet had previously threatened to put the 
Moor — 

"At least into a jealousy so strong 
That judgment cannot cure"; 

then uses means and measures to set his jealousy in 
motion; plies Desdemona to appeal to Othello for 
Cassio's reinstatement, and at the same time ruins 
the latter's credit with the Moor, saying: — 

"When devils will the blackest sins put on, 
They do at first suggest with heavenly shows, j 
As I do now." 

He tells Othello to "scan the thing no further," and 
later says of him, — 

"Not poppy, nor mandrogora 
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world, 
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep 
Which thou owedst yesterday." 

He uses the lost haDdkerchief of Desdemona, which 
he snatches from his wife, as one of the great pieces 
of circumstantial evidence, to poison Othello's mind; 
and when the Moor demands more evidence, delib- 
erately proceeds to rehearse fictitious talk of Cassio 
with Desdemona which he claimed to have heard in 
a dream which never occurred, and which existed 
only in his own inventive and falsified imagination. 
All men and women whom he met he used to work out 
his purposes, ever assuming virtues which he did not 



OTHELLO 77 

possess, to carry out his plans. From Roderigo, by 
his bombast and bold assurance and repeated words 
promising success, receiving money for his own use; 
counseling Othello with sage and sound advice; sym- 
pathizing with Desdemona's grief, and promising 
to win back her lord; chiding his wife and treating 
her only as a slave; her silence, he says, is hypo- 
critical; "She chides with thinking." In brief, he 
becomes throughout his whole career "all things to 
all men," not to save but to destroy; he appears as a 
personification of the greatest deviltry seen in human 
form, in wickedness and intrigue closely allied to Mil- 
ton's Satan. In contrast to him were the young and 
innocent Desdemona, the unsuspecting and inexperi- 
enced Othello, whose "dearest action" was "in the 
tented field," "and little of this great world" could 
he speak, "more than portains to feats of broil and 
battle." The much- wronged Cassio, who was dis- 
placed at first, was in the end restored to rightful 
power as he became the ruler of the isle; while the 
avenging Nemesis seized the hellish villain at last and 
consigned him to such "cunning cruelty" as might 
" torment him much and hold him long." 

Coleridge calls Iago "a motiveless malignity," 
and speaks of him as "all will in intellect"; and as 
we read and study the play we stop to ask ourselves 
the question : What was Iago's motive for such base- 
ness and ruin, of which he was the cause? His pre- 
tended motives are: first, Cassio's appointment as 



*8 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

lieutenant instead of himself; second, he intimates 
that he is suspicious of improper relations between 
both Cassio and Othello and his wife Emilia; but all 
the alleged causes which he trumps up are, when 
sifted, found to be foolish and baseless. 

He is unscrupulous in his actions, and because he 
is bound by no powers of conscience and right he 
thinks honest men are fools. But we find it illustrated 
again and again in life and in dramatic story that, 
although a man may have the keenest of intellects, 
yet if his "mind is a non-conductor of spiritual ele- 
ments," and given wholly to thoughts and acts of 
evil alone, it will be found that such evil influences 
will undermine and sap the judgment as well as the 
heart. This is one of the profoundest lessons taught 
by Shakespeare in his characters of evil as portrayed 
in the drama. Iago fitly illustrates such a character, 
as described by "Junius," who aptly remarks that 
"virtue and simplicity have so long been synonymous 
that the reverse of the proposition has grown into 
credit and every villain fancies himself a man of abil- 
ity." 

Shakespeare has given us the character of a notable 
villain in "Richard III," and in that play we find 
that the voice of conscience is heard, with its terrible 
denunciation, when disaster came upon the King; 
when his physical powers were weakened, and when 
sleep came over him and conquered his human will. 
There is no such demonstration in the case of Iago, 



OTHELLO 79 

who seems to be the baser villain of the two; yet we 
find traces of the working of conscience even in him. 
We find him claiming that, in giving his warning to 
Othello against jealousy, he is acting as a conscien- 
tious adviser; and also when he counsels Cassio to 
interview Desdemona and request her to petition 
Othello to return him to his former office. 

"And what's he then that says I play the villain? 
When this advice is free I give and honest, 
Probal to thinking and indeed the course 
To win the Moor again?" 

I think that perhaps there is no greater exhibition 
of Iago's mental shrewdness and deceptive action 
than in the conversation which takes place between 
him and Othello in the third scene of the third act, 
when Othello closely questions him as to his thoughts 
about Cassio and Desdemona, and when with such 
apparent wisdom and sincerity does he answer 
Othello that the latter says of him: — 

" This fellow's of exceeding honesty, 
And knows all qualities, with a learn'd spirit 
Of human dealings." 

In the Italian novel from which many of the char- 
acters in this play were taken, Desdemona is repre- 
sented as saying, "I fear that I must serve as a warn- 
ing to young maidens not to marry against the will 
of their parents; an Italian girl should not marry a 
man whom nature, heaven, and mode of life have 
wholly separated from her." 



80 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

Shakespeare doubtless had this example in mind 
as he wrote this play. The wide difference existing 
in race, family, age, and mode of life between Othello 
and Desdemona doubtless greatly increased and pro- 
moted growing jealousy and discord, and hastened 
the separation of hearts united by the sentiment of 
love alone. 

Another lesson the poet would have us learn from 
the play is to beware of calumny, of which Iago him- 
self speaks. 

" Good name in man or woman, dear my lord, 
Is the immediate jewel of their souls. 

Who steals my purse steals trash; 't is something, nothing; 
'T was mine, 't is his, and has been slave to thousands; 
But he that filches from me my good name 
Robs me of that which not enriches him 
And makes me poor indeed." 

A charitable spirit looks upon people as honest and 

true until they are proved to be dishonest and false, 

and does not assume them to be guilty until they are 

proved so. Charity will weigh carefully characters 

as well as circumstances, will not give hasty credence 

to the suspicious critic while recalling the story of the 

lost handkerchief and thinking of the sorrows which 

surround the characters found in this play. 

" More real, shadows though they be, 
Than many a man we know." 

I cannot better close this essay than by using the 
words of Othello in his dying speech, which reflect 
his inmost soul and are an epitome of his life and 
character. 



OTHELLO 81 

'Soft you; a word or two before you go. 
I have done the state some service, and they know't. 
No more of that. I pray you, in your letters, 
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate. 
Speak of me as I am, nothing extenuate, 
Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak 
Of one that lov'd not wisely but too well; . 
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought 
Perplex'd in the extreme, of one whose hand 
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away 
Richer than all his tribe." 



KING LEAR 

"Shakespeare's mind was an intellectual ocean 
whose waves touched all the shores of thought; an 
ocean toward which all rivers ran, and from which 
the isles and continents of thought now receive their 
dews and rains." So says an American orator, while 
Ruskin's enthusiasm prompts the remark when mak- 
ing a comparison between Homer and Shakespeare: 
"Of the scope of Shakespeare I will say only, that the 
intellectual measure of every man since born, in the 
domains of creative thought, may be assigned to him 
according to the degree which he has been taught 
by Shakespeare." These statements well illustrate 
the highly estimated and world-wide influence which 
the writings of this author everywhere exert upon the 
mind of man. As we turn to his plays, we esteem it a 
high privilege to review the works of such a master 
mind, whose insight penetrated the thoughts of all 
classes of mankind. 

The play of "King Lear" was written by Shake- 
speare between 1603 and 1606. The story did not 
originate with him, however. It was previously told 
by Spenser in his "Faerie Queene." It was translated 
into Latin by Geoffrey of Monmouth, a Welsh monk 
of the twelfth century. The history was afterwards 
written by Holinshed, an English historian, in 1574, 



KING LEAR 83 

who represented Lear as a ruler in the fabulous age 
of the Britains living some nine hundred years before 
the Christian era. This carries us back in history to 
the time when Ahab ruled in Samaria and the cruel 
Jezebel plotted the death of Naboth. 

War and bloodshed were common. Oppression 
ruled with an austere hand. Might made right. It 
was evidently Shakespeare's purpose to picture in 
this drama the life of man in a rude century when 
ruled by selfishness and passion unrestrained. As we 
think of this, we shall be more charitable in our judg- 
ment and not hastily condemn the characters as over- 
drawn and unnatural because unlike those of the age 
and times in which we live. 

The play we are considering deals with an old man 
whose eccentric conduct, it is thought, is the result 
of insanity. Commencing with his unjust division of 
his kingdom, it increases with the harsh treatment 
bestowed upon him by his eldest daughters, until it 
reaches a most pitiable stage, exciting the deep sym- 
pathy of the spectator of the drama or the reader 
of the story. An old king some fourscore years of 
age, autocratic and self-willed, after a long reign fan- 
cies that his life will be happier if he can "unbur- 
dened crawl towards death," and thinks to shake 
off the cares of state by dividing the kingdom among 
his three daughters, holding a semblance of power in 
some attendant knights reserved for this purpose. 

Fond of flattery, he obtains from his eldest daugh- 



84 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

ters, Goneril and Regan, the praises which he sought. 

Listen to the words of Goneril : — 

"Sir, I love you more than word can wield the matter: 
Dearer than eye-sight, space, and liberty; 
Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare; 
No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour; 
As much as child e'er lov'd, or father found, 
A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable; 
Beyond all manner of so much I love you." 

Regan echoes the sentiment expressed by her sister 
Goneril, " only she comes too short," Regan pro- 
fessing herself "an enemy to all other joys which the 
most precious square of sense professes," and finding 
herself "alone felicitate in [her father's] dear High- 
ness' love." 

The fawning and flattering daughters succeeded in 
their purpose. The King divides his kingdom between 
the two eldest, leaving his youngest daughter nothing. 
Some two weeks pass away and we hear Goneril 
giving these directions to her steward : — 

"Put on what weary negligence you please, 
You and your fellows; I'd have it come to question. 
If he distaste it, let him to my sister, 
Whose mind and mine, I know, in that are one, 
Not to be over-rul'd. Idle old man, 
That still would manage those authorities 
That he hath given away! Now, by my life, 
Old fools are babes again, and must be us'd 
With checks as flatteries, when they are seen abus'd. I 
Remember what I have said. . . . 
And let his knights have colder looks among you; 
What grows of it, no matter. Advise your fellows so. 
I would breed from hence occasions, and I shall, 



KING LEAR 85 

That I may speak. I '11 write straight to my sister, 
To hold my very course." 

Regret swiftly follows the King's hasty and unwise 
decision. 

"Woe that too late repents! . . . 
Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend, 
More hideous when thou show'st thee in a child 
Than the sea-monster!" 

The two cold-hearted daughters debate together 
as to the need of their father's keeping a train of fol- 
lowers, demanding its reduction and exasperating the 
old king, who, when Regan exclaims, "What need 
one?" retorts: — 

"Oh, reason not the need! Our basest beggars 
Are in the poorest thing superfluous. 
Allow not nature more than nature needs, 
Man's life is cheap as beast's. Thou art a lady; 
If only to go warm were gorgeous, 
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st, 
Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But for true need, — 
You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need! 
You see me here, you gods, a poor old man, 
As full of grief as age; wretched in both!" 

His daughters coldly and unfeelingly allow him, with 
his attendants, Gloucester, Kent, and the Fool, to go 
out into the drenching storm. The elements seem to 
him to have conspired against him, and he charges 
them in the midst of the wild and raging tempest as 
having joined with two pernicious daughters their 
" high engendered battles 'gainst a head so old and 
white as this," and cries: "I am a man more sinned 
against than sinning." 



86 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

For the purpose of explaining a play and also to 
reflect the thoughts of the spectators the Chorus was 
introduced in the Greek Tragedy. The comments 
made by the united voices of the chorus upon the 
chief actors, and the lessons taught by the play, have 
in the present play found a fit representation in the 
Fool. He had been brought up with the King, called 
by him "old boy," and though in name a fool, he was 
wise enough to understand the cause of King Lear's 
sorrow and degradation, and his sarcastic and cutting 
remarks afford a pleasant change from the intense 
strain put upon the mind by the recitation of a con- 
tinued tale of woe. The Fool's wit is like a second 
conscience to the King, and his comments, though 
caustic and severe, are nevertheless truthful and are 
fraught with words of wisdom. 

"Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs 
down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following. 
But the great one that goes upward let him draw 
thee after." 

"Fathers that wear rags 
Do make their children blind, 
But fathers that wear bags 
Shall see their children kind." 

" That, sir, which serves and seeks for gain 
And follows, but for form 
Will pack when it begins to rain 
And leave thee in the storm." 



KING LEAR 87 

Fool. Canst tell how an oyster makes his shell? 

Lear. No. 

Fool. Nor I neither; but I can tell why a snail 
has a house. 

Lear. Why? 

Fool. Why, to put's head in; not to give it away 
to his daughters and leave his horns without a case. 

The avarice of Shylock overtopped parental affec- 
tion. He mourned more for his ducats than for his 
daughter lost. Not so King Lear. It is not the loss 
of property that oppresses him so much as the loss of 
his daughters' affections and the base treatment he 
receives at their hands. They have betrayed the con- 
fidence he placed in them. They are bitter and un- 
grateful. Avarice has swallowed up filial affection. 
In his curse of Goneril, one of the severest penalties 
he wishes her to suffer is to feel, — 

" How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is 
To have a thankless child!" 

In this play, Shakespeare has violated the taste of 
classic writers in the twofold combination formed. 
Daughters despise the father in one part, while in 
another the bastard son plots the destruction of a no- 
ble brother and the death of his father, while both 
of the wicked factions combine and the daughters, 
treacherous to their aged sire, soon tire of the affec- 
tions of their husbands, seek their destruction, and 
plotting finally against each other, make covert and 
illicit union with the base-born Edmund. The picture 



88 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

drawn of that rude and barbarous age presents such 
discords in families and such rupture of the closest 
ties of relationship, that Schlegel says the actions of 
the characters represented "a great rebellion in the 
moral world; the picture becomes gigantic and cre- 
ates horror such as would be excited by the idea of 
the heavenly bodies escaping from their ordained 
orbits." 

Goneril is cold-hearted, wicked, and savage, as her 
treatment of the Duke of Gloucester discloses when 
she gouges out the old man's eyes. Goneril is the one 
most talked about by Lear in his fits of madness. 
Listen to his mad and incoherent mutterings as the 
faithful Kent tries to get him to he down and rest. 

Lear. I'll see their trial first. Bring in their evidence. 
(To Edgar). Thou robed man of justice, take thy place. 
(To the Fool). And thou, his yoke-fellow of equity, 
Bench by his side. (To Kent.) You are o' the commission, ' 
Sit you too. 

Arraign her first; 't is Goneril. I here take my oath before this 
honourable assembly, she kicked the poor King, her father. 

Fool. Come hither, mistress, is your name Goneril? 

Lear. She cannot deny it. 

Fool. Cry you mercy, I took you for a joint stool. 

Lear. And here 's another, whose warp'd looks proclaim 
What store her heart is made on. Stop her there! 
Arms, arms, sword, fire! Corruption in the place! 
False Justicer, False justicer, why hast thou let her scape? 

Such are the wandering fancies that troop in dis- 
order in the mad King's brain. Keen were the pangs 
he suffered and great was his remorse as he thought 



KING LEAR 89 

of the daughter whom he loved most but whom he 
had so hastily cast off and disinherited, that one 
daughter " who redeems nature from the general curse 
which twain have brought her to." Morning always 
looks brighter by reason of receding darkness. Sun- 
light is most welcome when it follows the passing 
thunder-cloud. That spring most attracts which fol- 
lows a severe winter. So Cordelia comes into the play 
to brighten the gloom and blackness here portrayed. 
Ruskin asserts that the ideal characters of Shake- 
speare's plays comprise only women; the noblest 
male characters are found with noted blemishes, 
while with few exceptions, notably Lady Macbeth, 
Goneril, and Regan, he has portrayed female char- 
acters endowed with purity and loveliness. Cordelia 
was the daughter recognized by her sisters and father 
as the one he most dearly loved. To her in former days 
his heart had fondly turned. But in his old age he was 
subject to flattery and he hoped she would heap flat- 
tery upon him surpassing that of her sisters. Corde- 
lia understood their hypocrisy and knew the shallow- 
ness of the professions they so glibly uttered to please 
the fancy of their aged sire. She would not barter her 
self-respect to win a kingdom. With her, love, like 
religion, was of life, not language. Hear her noble 
words as she stands before the waiting King: — 

Cordelia. Unhappy though I am, I cannot heave 
My heart into my mouth. I love your majesty 
According to my bond; no more nor less. j 



90 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

Lear. How, how, Cordelia! Mend your speech a little, 
Lest you may mar your fortunes. 

Cordelia. Good my lord, 

You have begot me, bred me, lov'd me; I 
Return those duties back as are right fit; 
Obey you, love you and most honour you. 
Why have my sisters husbands, if they say 
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed, 
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry 
Half my love with him, half my care and duty. 
Sure I shall never marry like my sisters 
To love my father all. 

Cordelia to her own self was true; but her re- 
sponse awakened only the bitter passion, willfulness, 
and anger of the King. He declares her — 

"Unfriended, new adopted to our hate, 
Dower'd with our curse and stranger'd with our oath." 

Patiently she hears her doom pronounced; she utters 
no intemperate speech; governed by self-control and 
self-respect, she will not "crook the pregnant hinges 
of the knee, where thrift may follow f awning.' ' She 
is only anxious lest any suspicion of dishonor should 
envelop her as she exclaims : — 

" I yet beseech your Majesty, — 
If for I want that glib and oily art, 
To speak and purpose not, since what I well intend 
I'll do't before I speak, — that you make known. 
It is no vicious blot, nor other foulness, 
No unchaste action or dishonoured step 
That hath deprived me of your grace and favour; 
But even for want of that for which I am richer, 
Still-soliciting eye, and such a tongue 
That I am glad I have not, though not to have it 
Hath lost me in your liking." 



KING LEAR 91 

"Better," says Lear, "thou hadst not been bora 
than not to have pleased me better." She had lost a 
father's favor, but won the admiration of the King 
of France, who accepts her as a dowry of herself, 
saying to her, — 

"Fairest Cordelia, thou art most rich being poor, 
Most choice forsaken, and most lov'd despis'd! " 

Says Lear: — 

" Thou hast her, France. Let her be thine, for we 
Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see 
That face of hers again. — {To Cordelia.) Therefore be gone. 
Without our grace, our love, our benison." 

Quietly she submits to her father's parting words, 

without scornful reply, but bids adieu to all, giving 

these words of parting advice to her sisters : — 

The jewels of our father, with washed eyes, 

Cordelia leaves you. I know you what you are; 

And like a sister am most loath to call 

Your faults as they are named. Love well our father. 

To your professed bosoms I commit him; 

But yet, alas, stood I within his grace, 

I would prefer him to a better place. 

So farewell to you both. 

Regan. Prescribe not us our duty. 

Goneril. Let your study 

; Be to content your lord, who hath receiv'd you 
At fortune's alms. You have obedience scanted 
And well are worth the want that you have wanted. 

Cordelia. Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides; 
Who cover faults, at last shame them derides. 
[ Well may you prosper! 

The self-control and patient submission of Cordelia 
win our admiration as she stands before her father, 



m EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

while with his tongue he lashes her with scathing 
words. Filial love awaits sentence before a court 
from which there is no appeal. Reason has abdicated 
the throne, blind passion and fickleness hold sway. 
The unjust judgment is pronounced and is heard by 
the daughter without one hasty or impatient word 
uttered in reply. The daughter comprehends the 
weakness of the parent, she opposes no resistance to 
the order, yet pities her father from the bottom of her 
heart. The father has turned from the daughter, but 
the daughter does not turn from the father. She is 
an ideal of patience, a shining example and personi- 
fication of the noblest fidelity ever described by the 
poet, who has said that "Love is not love which alters 
when it alteration finds." The weakness of the parent 
calls for greater devotion by the child. She leaves 
him, but not without solicitude for his welfare; and 
when on a foreign shore she learns of his desertion and 
helplessness, she hastily leaves France with an army, 
lands on the English coast at Dover, finds her father, 
tenderly watches over him, and awaits with anxiety 
his returning consciousness. 

No wonder he at first refused to see that daughter, 

"A sovereign shame so elbows him. His own unkindness 
That stripp'd her from his benediction, tum'd her. 
To foreign casualties, gave her dear rights 
To his dog-hearted daughters, — these things sting 
His mind so venomously that burning shame 
Detains him from Cordelia." 

In his misfortune the wrong he did to his child is 



KING LEAR 93 

forgotten by her. He is her father still. How tenderly 
she bends over him exclaiming, — 

"Was this a face 
To be opposed against the warring winds? 
To stand against the deep dread bolted thunder? 
In the most terrible and nimble stroke, 
Of quick, cross lightning? To watch — poor perdu! — 
With this thin helm? Mine enemy's dog, 
Though he had bit me, should have stood that night 
Against my fire; and wast thou fain, poor father, 
To hovel thee with swine and rogues forlorn 
In short and musty straw? Alack, alack! 
'T is wonder that thy life and wits at once 
Had not concluded all. He wakes; speak to him. 

look upon me, sir, 
And hold your hand in benediction o'er me. 
No, sir, you must not kneel." 

Kind, fond, and true is Cordelia, the brightest star 
that shines amid the gloom and blackness of the shift- 
ting scenes of this drama, always representing a love 
unselfish, devoted, and true. She is worthy of a com- 
parison with Antigone, the highest ideal of woman- 
hood found in Greek tragedy, and so happily de- 
scribed by Sophocles; she too watched over and cared 
for an aged father and subsequently dared, by reason 
of her fond affection for a brother, to disobey the 
state's decree and forfeit her life. Such high regard 
did the rites of burial have among the Greeks that 
it was their belief that the soul of an unburied body 
would wander one hundred years by the banks of the 
river Styx in the lower world before it could pass over 



94 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE" 

to the isles of the blessed, to the Elysian fields beyond. 
Hence the deep regard accorded to a burial service. 
Natural affection and a sister's love led Antigone, in 
defiance of a decree of the ruler of Thebes, to give her 
brother burial rites and scatter earth upon his lifeless 
form. For such disobedience she was doomed to die. 
When asked by King Creon if she had dared to diso- 
bey this law, she proudly answered yes, — 

"Nor did I deem thy edicts strong enough 
That thou, a mortal man, shouldst overpass 
Th' unwritten laws of God that know no change; 
They are not of to-day nor yesterday, 
But live forever, nor can man assign 
When first they sprang to being. Not through fear 
Of any man's resolve was I prepared 
Before the Gods to bear the penalty 
Of sinning against these. That I should die 
I knew (how should I not?) though thy decree 
Had never spoken. And before my time 
If I shall die I reckon this a gain, 
For whoso lives, as I, in many lives 
How can it be, but he shall gain by death?" 

Antigone's fidelity to the law of Nature and of God, 
when opposed to the law of state as pronounced in the 
decree of Creon, made her an ideal being, reverend 
and admired among the Greeks, for her truth and 
sincerity. Cordelia does not suffer in comparison with 
such a noble character. She too was as faithful and 
loyal in the devotedness which she exhibited towards 
a father, and unhesitatingly meets her doom as she 
attempts to rescue her father from the hands of his 



KING LEAR 95 

enemies. She is forced into a prison with him, but the 
confinement does not terrify them. As they approach 
King Lear exclaims, — 

"Come let 's away to prison; 
We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage. 
When thou dost ask me blessing, I '11 kneel down 
And ask of thee forgiveness. So we'll live, 
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh 
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues 
Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too, 
Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out; 
And take upon 's the mystery of things, 
As if we were God's spies; and we'll wear out, 
In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones, 
That ebb and flow by the moon." 

I have seen it stated that in the historical plays the 
problem before Shakespeare's mind was, "How is a 
man to obtain a mastery of the actual world, and in 
what ways may he fail of such mastery? In the tra- 
gedies success means not any practical achievement 
in the world, but the perfected life of the soul; and 
failure means the ruin of the life of a soul through 
passion or weakness, through calamity or crime." 

Such success and such failure have been fully set 
forth in the play we have been considering. The 
perfected life of the soul is seen in a Cordelia, a Lear, 
a Kent, and an Edgar; while the ruin of the soul's 
life and the rapid steps which caused its downfall 
are read in the fate of Edmund, Regan, and Goneril. 
There is a tone of sadness in the play. We naturally 
wish that its ending had been different, that the vir- 



96 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

tues of Cordelia might have triumphed over the vices 
of her sisters, and that she might have been left to 
reign with her repentant father upon the throne which 
she so much merited. There is a continual clashing of 
virtues and vices; virtue is militant but not triumph- 
ant to our view here, but yet we believe trained 
for an immortality beyond. We cannot fail to notice, 
however, that the good stand by and defend the good, 
and act in harmony for the advance of the right, while 
the evil spirits in the play are not able to unite and 
act together, or, if any union is attempted, discord 
soon creeps in, and turning against one another, they 
are doomed to swift destruction. 

Shakespeare's acknowledged power depends upon 
his powerful imagination. While other men see only 
an indistinct form and outline, he sees the whole. The 
form, the face, the expression, the thoughts, the emo- 
tions and the passions which move and sway men of 
high and low degree are seen at a quick glance by him 
and photographed upon the ever-living page of his- 
tory. His imagination finds full play in a tragedy like 
that before us. He lays bare to our inspection the plots 
of the villain and the virtues of the noble-minded. He 
is unsurpassed also in his description of nature as well 
as of character. What a vivid portrayal is that in 
which Edgar leads the blind Gloucester, and by a 
ruse prevents his contemplated suicide ! The beetling 
cliff, the samphire-gatherer, the fishermen and di- 
minished boat described by Edgar as if seen from the 



KING LEAR 97 

lofty rock, — in these we have one of the finest illus- 
trations of the power of the author's imaginative art. 
In the play we are obliged to follow the foolish mutter- 
ings of a lunatic king. We tire of such disjointed 
sentences and wandering thoughts; and yet, so true 
are they to the mad character which he describes 
that the most experienced medical authorities have 
pronounced the play a true portrayal of the various 
stages through which the lunatic passes, and his true 
treatment prescribed in the tenderness and the sooth- 
ing words which the loving Cordelia used. 

In Shakespeare's time madness was supposed to be 
the result of some evil spirit which had taken posses- 
sion of the subject, controlling and influencing him as 
if possessed of a devil. Shakespeare ascribed the re- 
sults to natural causes, and in this play illustrated 
and described the different stages leading on to lunacy, 
and truthfully portrayed the symptoms, course, and 
treatment of the disease, discarding in advance of his 
age the theory that indwelling witches or evil spirits 
made all the trouble in the suspected subject. With 
two exceptions all of Shakespeare's plays deal with 
court scenes, — kings and clowns, queens and ser- 
vants, lords and ladies, rich and poor, are brought 
into comparison. The contrasts of life and character 
which the dramatist always strives to find can be best 
obtained in royal palaces. Bacon was a contempo- 
rary of Shakespeare, but made no mention of his 
name in any of his writings. It was left to succeeding 



98 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

ages to do him justice. In October, 1892, Westminster 
Abbey received into its hallowed and consecrated 
ground the lifeless form of England's honored Poet 
Laureate. As Tennyson neared the close of life the 
words of Shakespeare continued to be his delight. 
"King Lear," "Troilus and Cressida," and "Cymbe- 
line," were plays he took pleasure in reading. On the 
last day of his life his finger rested in the partly closed 
volume in the place which marked the play of "Cym- 
beline. ,, Thus at life's close the sweet influence of the 
greatest poet of the Elizabethan age rested upon the 
attractive singer of the Victorian era. "Even from 
the tomb the voice of Nature cries, even in our ashes 
live their wonted fires." 

The telautograph silently records upon the paper 
at the receiving station the movements made by an 
invisible hand far away. So Shakespeare's sovereign 
power is felt across the centuries, moving, moulding, 
and controlling all minds which await the reception 
of his silent messages. One of the most important of 
these is the present play which we have so hastily 
considered, hoping that we have not wearied your 
patience in holding your attention so long to King 
Lear, of whom it is time we now take our leave, say- 
ing with Kent as we go, — 

"Vex not his ghost, O let him pass! He hates him 
That would upon the rack of this tough world 
Stretch him out longer." 



HENRY THE FIFTH AND FALSTAFF 

As the visitor strolls through the streets of Strat- 
ford-on-Avon, and approaches the different buildings 
made famous by historical associations and by rela- 
tion to the life of the immortal Shakespeare, he will 
not fail to notice the Memorial Theatre erected with 
a purpose to keep alive a perpetual interest in the dif- 
ferent plays written by the great dramatist. 

In front of this theatre stands a beautiful bronze 
statue, the gift of Lord Ronald Gower, surmounted 
by the figure of Shakespeare, who, seated upon his 
lofty throne, holds in his hand a quill as if engaged 
with meditative look in writing down the thoughts 
and acts of mankind. 

At the four corners of the statue's base are seen 
four other bronze figures representing in the artist's 
mind four prominent and representative characters 
of Shakespeare's plays. Hamlet, sitting with anxious 
and careworn brow holding in his hand the skull of 
Yorick, the King's jester. Lady Macbeth standing 
at the next corner, with sorrowful look as she at- 
tempts to rub out the imagined spot of blood from 
her extended hand. Young Prince Hal stands at 
another corner, holding in youthful triumph the regal 
crown which he is about to place upon his head, while 
at the fourth corner the portly Falstaff is seated upon 



100 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

his bench, with empty goblet in hand and quizzical 
face as if listening to the banter of boon companions. 

Tragedy, History, and Comedy are here repre- 
sented in these several figures. While the tragedies 
have been, probably, most admired and studied, 
the historical plays are not without their admirers 
also, and are well worth the attention of the Shake- 
spearean student. 

There are two ways in which history may be stud- 
ied : one, by the perusal of the pages of some reliable 
historian, where one may find carefully given exact 
dates of important events, sketches of the principal 
characters, and a careful description of the times and 
incidents which the historian desires to record, all 
often written with such exactness and detail as to be- 
come a record of cold facts which do not win the close 
attention of the reader or leave a lasting impression 
upon his memory. In comparison with this the poet's 
methods and manner are often more pleasing to the 
reader, and are attended with more beneficial results 
to his mind and memory. 

The poet does Dot feel as great an obligation to 
follow statistical details, but takes a poetic license to 
give free course to his imagination and to place the 
scenes and characters of the history so attractively 
before his readers that they become as it were spec- 
tators of the times depicted; hearing the speech of the 
chief actors, listening to their counsels, and by means 
of the poet's imagination having the scenes and events 



HENRY FIFTH AND FALSTAFF 101 

brought more vividly before them than if followed in 
a historical narrative. Hudson has perhaps compre- 
hensively summed up the difference between the two 
in the remark that "History instructs and therefore 
pleases; while Art pleases and therefore instructs." 

If, therefore, we can find pleasure in the study of a 
play although it may be the history of a kingdom, we 
shall be sure to receive profit also. The memory of 
events, being impressed upon our minds by means of 
an active imagination, brightens and illumines the dif- 
ferent historical scenes which appear in the story. 

Under the guidance of the poet we have been 
led to review a portion of English history between 
the years 1399 and 1422. During the first fourteen 
years attention is specially called to the early life of 
Henry V, and the companionship of Falstaff during 
King Henry IV's reign, followed by the nine years of 
the reign of King Henry V, between 1413 and 1422, — 
a period made prominent in English history by the 
excellent character of its ruler and by the spirit of 
patriotism which he encouraged and secured for the 
nation's history during his reign. 

Young Prince Hal, as he was called, was born 
August 9, 1387, and was eleven years of age when his 
father became king. He was twenty-six when he him- 
self ascended the throne, and was but thirty-four 
when he closed his career, August 31, 1422, being of 
about the age of Shakespeare when this play was 
probably written, during 1598 or 1599. It is therefore 



102 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

highly probable that Shakespeare entered with more 
enthusiasm into the portrayal of the character of the 
young King. As Shakespeare's own history is con- 
nected with youthful pranks and lawlessness, causing, 
it is said, an early departure for London, we can well 
imagine that he entered into a vivid portrayal of the 
young Prince's associations with Sir John Falstaff, 
and his companions Bardolph, Peto, and Poins, and 
was not obliged to draw very heavily upon his imagi- 
nation for the facts and illustrations of old tavern 
life, with which he himself had been so closely 
associated. 

It is probable also that Shakespeare himself acted 
the part of the young Prince in the Theatre at Lon- 
don, as we learn from a letter written by Sir John 
Da vies about 1607. "To our English Terence Mr. 
Wm. Shakespeare, some say, good Will which I in 
spirit do sing. . . . Hadst thou not played some 
kingly parts in sport, thou hadst been a companion 
for a king and become a king among the meaner 
sort." 

As Prince Hal is the only one in all of Shakespeare's 
plays which can be called a kingly part played in 
sport, the conclusion is that Shakespeare was the ori- 
ginal actor referred to. Our first introduction to the 
young Prince in the play of " Henry IV " finds him in 
the company of Falstaff and Poins, conversing about 
drink and taking purses; yet in his first soliloquy he 
prepares our minds for a change of life, his intention 



HENRY FIFTH AND FALSTAFF 103 

being at some future time "this loose behaviour" to 
"throw off." 

" And pay the debt I never promised, 

And like bright metal on a sullen ground, 
My reformation, glitt'ring o'er my fault, 
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes 
Than that which hath no fault to set it off." 

The solemn and dignified appearance of court life, 
the jealous nature of his father, surrounded with 
fawning and deceitful courtiers, disgusted the gay 
young Prince, inducing him to seek the jolly compan- 
ions found at the Boar's Head Tavern, instead of 
mingling with the more formal and reserved associa- 
tions of the palace. Such conduct annoyed and morti- 
fied his father, who reproved his wayward son for 
being so lavish of his presence and " so stale and cheap 
to vulgar company." King Henry says that he had 

"dressed himself in such humility, 
That he did pluck allegiance from men's hearts," 

and by his dignity secured the worship and allegiance 

of his subjects; but of his son he said: — 

"Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds, 
And he the noble image of my youth 
Is o'er spread with them, therefore my grief 
Stretches itself beyond the hour of death." 

His grief breaks forth afresh when nearing death, as 
he rouses from sleep to find that his crown has been 
taken from his bedside by his son who is trying it upon 
his own head in an adjoining room, and he exclaims: 



104 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

"When that my care could not withhold thy riots. 
What wilt thou do when riot is thy care." 

This stinging rebuke brought such a quick, hearty, 
and explanatory response as to convince the King 
that honor still remained in his sorrowful son and he 
advises him : — 

" Be it thy course to busy giddy minds 
With foreign quarrels that action hence borne out 
May waste the memory of former days." 

King Henry IV, as founder of the House of Lancas- 
ter, never enjoyed in peace the fruits of his usurpation : 
the same barons who had helped him to the crown 
subsequently became his foes and sought to over- 
throw his power. England had been disturbed by dif- 
ferent factions. Owen Glendower was a brilliant 
leader of the discontented men from Wales. Earl 
Douglas headed the opposition from Scotland. Henry 
Percy, suruamed "Hotspur," because, it was said, 
since the time he had first clasped spurs upon his feet, 
when twelve years of age, they were never cold by 
reason of his ceaseless activity, became a daring and 
impetuous leader. All these men had helped King 
Henry IV to his crown, but their zeal had grown cold 
in his support, and they later turned against him. 

King Henry's anxiety and sorrow over his son's 
wildness and companionship was made the subject 
and sport of the young Prince's companions, and is 
nowhere better illustrated than in the scene in which 
the kingly sport is acted, when Falstaff prepares the 



HENRY FIFTH AND FALSTAFF 105 

young Prince to receive the anticipated rebuke of his 
father, the fat knight himself personifying the King. 
Of this scene Hudson says that it is "probably the 
choicest issue of comic preparation that genius has 
ever bequeathed to human enjoyment." I will recall 
a portion of the scene. 

Falstaff. — There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast often heard 
of, and it is known to many in our land by the name of pitch. This 
pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile; so doth the com- 
pany thou keepest; for, Harry, now I do not speak to thee in drink, 
but in tears; not in pleasure, but in passion; not in words only, but 
in woes also; and yet there is a virtuous man whom I have often 
noted in thy company, but I know not his name. M 

I Prince. — What manner of man, an it like your Majesty? 
^ Falstaff. — A good portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent; of a 
cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I 
think, his age some fifty or, by 'r lady, inclining to threescore; and 
now I remember me, his name is Falstaff. If that man should be 
lewdly given, he deceiveth me; for, Harry, I see virtue in his looks. 
If, then, the tree may be known by the fruit, as the fruit by the 
tree, then, peremptorily I speak it, there is virtue in that Falstaff; 
him keep with, the rest banish. And tell me now, thou naughty var- 
let, tell me, where hast thou been this month? 

Prince. — Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for me, 
and I '11 play my father. 

Falstaff. — Depose me? If thou dost it half so gravely, so ma- 
jestically, both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a 
rabbit-sucker or a poulter's hare. 

Prince. — Well, here I am set. 

Falstaff. — And here I stand. Judge, my masters. 

Prince. — Now, Harry, whence come you? 

Falstaff. — My noble lord, from Eastcheap. 

Prince. — The complaints I hear of thee are grievous. 

Falstaff. — 'Sblood, my lord, they are false. — Nay, I '11 tickle 
ye for a young prince, i' faith. 



106 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

Prince. — Swearest thou, ungracious boy? Henceforth ne'er 
look on me. Thou art violently carried away from grace; there is 
a devil haunts thee in the likness of a fat old man; a ton of man is 
thy companion. Why dost thou converse with that trunk of hu- 
mours, that bolting-hutch of beastliness; that swollen parcel of 
dropsies; that huge bombard of sack; that stuffed cloak-bag of guts; 
that roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly; that_ 
reverend vice; that grey iniquity; that father ruffian; that vanity , 
in years? Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink it? 
Wherein neat and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it? Where- 
in cunning, but in craft? Wherein crafty, but in villainy? Wherein 
villainous but in all things? Wherein worthy but in nothing? 

Falstaff. — I would your grace would take me with you. Whom 
means your grace? 

Prince. — That villainous abominable misleader of youth, Fal- 
staff, that old white-bearded Satan. 

Falstaff. — My lord, the man I know. 

Prince. — I know thou dost. 

Falstaff. — But to say I know more harm in him than in myself, 
were to say more than I know. That he is old, the more the pity, 
his white hairs do witness it ; ... If sack and sugar be a fault, God 
help the wicked! If to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old 
host that I know is damned! If to be fat be to be hated, then Pha- 
raoh's lean kine are to be loved! No, my good lord, banish Peto, 
banish Bardolph, banish Poins; but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind 
Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and there- 
fore more valiant, being, as he is, old Jack Falstaff, banish not him 
thy Harry's company; banish plump Jack, and banish all the world. 

Prince. — I do, I will. 

This sportive and humorous dialogue, so comically 
given, presents Falstaff in his true light though given 
in comedy; and the reader naturally asks, as he reads 
over this history, why should Prince Hal seek such 
companionship? Falstaff has given answer in another 
place : "That he was not only witty in himself but the 



HENRY FIFTH AND FALSTAFF 107 

cause that wit was in other men." He was full of life 
and jollity, the Prince companied with him for his 
conversation and sagacious comments on men and 
society, and it is always just such men who enliven 
the bar-rooms and provoke fun and laughter over the 
flowing cups of an ale-house. Is it not such companion- 
ship as attracts men in the present day to the gilded 
saloon? It was a popular picture for Shakespeare to 
give, of former times in old England, causing him to 
carry along its characters in the plays of "Henry IV" 
and "Henry V ; and it is said that the character so 
pleased Queen Elizabeth that she asked Shakespeare 
to represent Falstaff making love. This he did, it is 
said, by writing in fourteen days the play of "The 
Merry Wives of Windsor." But the incongruity of 
such a character in love failed in this respect and 
falls far below the merit of its production in the 
historical plays. 

No sooner had the crown been placed upon the 
brow of the young Prince, as Henry the Fifth, than 
he at once made known that a change had come over 
him. As the royal procession passed Falstaff on its 
way, the latter boldly greeted the new King with 
"God save thy Grace, King Hal! My royal Hal!" to 
which the King replied : — 

\ "I know thee not, old man; fall to thy prayers. 
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester! 
I have long dream'd of such a kind of man 
So surfeit-swell'd, so old, and so profane; 
But, being awak'd, I do despise my dream. 



108 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace; 
Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape 
For thee thrice wider than for other men. 
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest. 
Presume not that I am the thing I was. 

When thou dost hear I am as I have been, 
Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast. 
The tutor and the feeder of my riots; 
Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death, 
As I have done the rest of my misleaders, 
Not to come near our person by ten mile." 

The Archbishop of Canterbury says that, at the 
moment of his father's death, — 

"Consideration, like an angel, came 
And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him, ! 
Leaving his body as a paradise 
To envelope and contain celestial spirits." 

The Bishop of Ely likens his change "to the 
strawberry that grows underneath the nettle," — 

"And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best, 
Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality: 
And so the Prince obscured his contemplation 
Under the veil of wildness." 

When President Seelye in the classroom at Am- 
herst College wished to impress upon the minds of the 
students that a noble life could be lived in the pres- 
ence of a hostile environment, he used this illustra- 
tion: "The lily sticks its root into the carrion and yet 
has petals of spotless purity and beauty." In the 
same way the young Prince, though mingling with 
and surrounded by elements of contagion, used them 



HENRY FIFTH AND FALSTAFF 109 

for good and not for evil, and "grew like the sum- 
mer grass fastest by night, unseen, yet crescive in 
his faculty." 

The new King met the first question of importance, 
as to the right of making war upon France, by con- 
sulting with his advisers the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury and the Bishop of Ely, solemnly charging them 
justly and religiously to unfold whether the Salic law 
that no woman should succeed as ruler should, or 
should not, bar him in his claim of sovereignty over 
that country as heir of his great-grandfather Edward 
the Third; charging them not to decide against the 
truth, — 

"For God doth know how many now in health 
Shall drop their blood in approbation 
Of what your reverence shall incite us to." 

They tell the King that he with right and conscience 
may lay claim to the throne of France, and urge him 
to "look back unto your mighty ancestors, " from 
whom he claims; to — 

"Awake remembrance of these valiant dead, 
And with your puissant arm renew their feats." 

The divided condition of his own kingdom is de- 
bated; the wily Scot is talked about and the old 
maxim referred to — 

"If that you will France win 
Then with Scotland first begin." 

In discussing the different grounds, defenses, and 
system by which the government should be main- 



110 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

tained and defended, the Archbishop of Canterbury 
beautifully describes the commonwealth of the bees, 
unfolding the harmony of action, the unity and obe- 
dience between ruler and subject of the busy hive. 
The advice and stirring exhortations of the prelates 
convince the young King that his claim is just, and he 
makes answer to the Dauphin's message of defiance 
from France, accompanied by tennis balls sent in 
mockery to remind him of the giddy courses of his 
youth, by bidding the messenger to say, — 

"When we have match'd our rackets to these balls. 
We will, in France, by God's grace, play a set 
Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard." 

He zealously pursued the policy his father had ad- 
vised, to busy his subjects with foreign war, and turn 
their thoughts away from dissensions at home. 

He watchfully guards against surprise and shrewdly 
frustrates the treachery of Richard Earl of Cam- 
bridge, Sir Thomas Grey, Knight of Northumberland, 
and Henry Lord Scroop of Marsham, committing all 
to punishment, but first administering a stinging 
rebuke to Lord Scroop for his unfaithfulness. 

"What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop? thou cruel, 
Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature! 
Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels, i 
That knew'st the very bottom of my soul, 
That almost mightst have coin'd me into gold, 
Wouldst thou have practis'd on me for thy use; 

Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem. 
And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot 



HENRY FIFTH AND FALSTAFF 111 

To mark the full-fraught man and best indued 
With some suspicion. I will weep for thee; 
For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like 
Another fall of man." 

On August 15, 1415, the English army landed at 
Harfleur, and by September 22 the town surrendered 
and was put in the keeping of an English garrison. 
The great battle of the campaign came at Agincourt 
where the French were so strongly posted as to com- 
pel King Henry to surrender or cut his way through 
the French army. He was conscious of his great dan- 
ger and so tells Gloucester on the eve of the battle, — 

" Gloucester, 't is true that we are in great danger; 
The greater therefore should our courage be. . . . 
There is some soul of goodness in things evil, 
Would men observingly distil it out; 
For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers. 
Which is both healthful and good husbandry. 
Besides, they are our outward consciences, 
And preachers to us all, admonishing 
That we should dress us fairly for our end. 
Thus may we gather honey from the weed, 
And make a moral of the devil himself." 

King Henry's love and care for his soldiers, and 
his desire to give them encouragement before the bat- 
tle, are seen as he borrows Sir Thomas Erpingham's 
cloak, and mingles unknown with his men, talking 
with them as if he were one of the common people, 
preparing them for the coming battle and for life or 
death. He tells Williams: "Every subject's duty is 
the King's; but every subject's soul is his own. There- 



112 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

fore should every soldier in the wars do as every sick 
man in his bed, wash every mote out of his conscience; 
and, dying so, death is to him advantage; or not dy- 
ing, the time was blessedly lost wherein such prepa- 
ration was gained; and in him that escapes, it were 
not sin to think that, making God so free an offer, 
He let them outlive that day to see His greatness and 
to teach others how they should prepare." 

In the soliloquy following this interview with his 
subjects, he compares the subject's condition with the 
King's, and exclaims : — 

"What infinite heart's-ease 
Must kings neglect, that private men enjoy! 
And what have kings, that privates have not too, 
Save ceremony, — save general ceremony? 
And what art thou, thou idol Ceremony? 

the sceptre, and the ball, 
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial, 
The intertissued robe of gold and pearl, J 
The farced title running 'fore the King, 
The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp ~ 
That beats upon the high shore of this world, 
No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous Ceremony, — 
Not all these, laid in bed majestical, 
Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave. 

The slave, a member of the country's peace, 
Enjoys it, but in gross brain little wots 
What watch the King keeps to maintain the peace, 
Whose hours the peasant best advantages." 

On the morning of the battle he prays to the God 
of battles to give courage to his soldiers : — 



HENRY FIFTH AND FALSTAFF 113 

"Not to-day, Lord, 
O, not to-day, think not upon the fault 
My father made in compassing the crown!" 

He recalls what chapels he has built, and the poor 
he has aided, to atone for his father's crime of usur- 
pation, and yet recognizes that it is not by works 
alone that pardon should be sought, but that repent- 
ance must be added also; saying as he concludes his 
prayer, — 

"More will I do 
Though all that I can do is nothing worth. 
Since that my penitence comes after all, 
Imploring pardon." 

After the great battle of Agincourt, fought October 
25, 1415, in which ten thousand French were reported 
slain and but a small number of the English, — as 
the herald brings in this report of the battle, the King 
thankfully and reverentially gives God the glory, ex- 
claiming, — 

"O God, thy arm was here; 
And not to us, but to thy arm alone 
Ascribe we all! When, without stratagem, 
But in plain shock and even play of battle. 
Was ever known so great and little loss 
On one part and on the other? Take it, God, 
For it is only thine." 

The success of King Henry V in the conquests of 
the battle-field was followed by a successful conquest 
of the heart of Princess Katharine of France, who, in 
broken English, yields to the earnest petition of her 
suitor. A marriage treaty is consummated whereby 



114 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE, 

England is joined in "incorporate league " to France, 
and the two countries so long enemies again became 
friends, — King Henry's demands being granted and 
he himself publicly affianced to Princess Katharine. 
The play closes with the marriage to Princess Kath- 
erine in 1420. Two years later, troubles in France 
called King Henry again to lead his armies there, and 
in the stress of a campaign he was stricken with a 
fatal fever, dying in France at the age of thirty-four. 
He left a young son, too young to govern; and under 
the dissensions that arose England lost the control of 
France which she had gained under the successful 
administration of Henry V. 

In this and the preceding plays Shakespeare has 
presented the thoughts and opinions of a number of 
characters, and from their conversation and conduct 
we learn what motives should control ideal leaders 
and rulers in a kingdom. 

We notice King Henry's public recognition of a 
divine ruler to whom allegiance is first due and to 
whom thanks are publicly given for his success. He 
had a careful oversight of the advisers who surrounded 
him. His intimate familiarity with mankind and with 
his own subjects developed sympathy and humanity 
in his character, making his life a marked contrast to 
the cold and austere dignity of his father. 

The play has a tendency to awaken and promote a 
national feeling of patriotism and pride in the hearts 



HENRY FIFTH AND FALSTAFF 115 

of all Englishmen, who have always held a proud re- 
membrance of England's supremacy under this ruler. 

It is worth while to notice and compare the differ- 
ent motives which influenced and controlled some of 
the other principal characters to whom our attention 
has been called. 

Falstaff has suggested the inquiry what is true 
honor, in his soliloquy just before the battle of 
Shrewsbury, when he tells the Prince: "I would it 
were bedtime, Hal, and all well." 

"Why," said the Prince, "thou owest God a 
death." 

Falstaff replies, " 'T is not due yet; I would be loath 
to pay him before his day. What need I to be so for- 
ward with him that calls not on me? Well, 't is no 
matter; honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour 
prick me off when I come on? How then? Can hon- 
our set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away 
the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in 
surgery, then? No. What is honour? A word? What 
is in that word ? — honour. What is that honour? 
Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died o' 
Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? 
No. 'T is insensible, then? Yea, to the dead. But will 
it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will 
not suffer it. Therefore I '11 none of it. Honour is a 
mere scutcheon; and so ends my catechism." 

The comments of the German writer, Professor 
Gervinus, are worth attention in comparing the stan- 



116 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

dard of honor adopted by King Henry IV (born 
1366) Henry Percy (born 1364), King Henry V (born 
1388) and Falstaff. 

King Henry IV looks upon honor externally and 
refers it only to the rank and position he fills; morality 
has nothing to do with his love of honor; appearance 
only is to be saved and his honor is to be maintained 
in the esteem of the world. 

With Percy it is otherwise; the honor after which 
he aspires he wishes to deserve by action and by moral 
worth; his ambition springs from the humble feelings 
of the bravest heart; it is upborne by a noble pride till 
it swells into a thirst for glory which danger only pro- 
vokes the more, and even the injustice of the means 
is overlooked in its aim. 

Different again is Prince Henry's relation to honor. 
He is animated by the same ambition, by the same 
desire for glory as Percy, but it could never rise to 
that morbid thirst as in Percy, because it is of a more 
profound nature. It is not pride but noble self-reliance 
which urges him forward to satisfy himself. This is 
of more importance to him than to stand well in 
others' esteem. He spiritualizes and refines the true 
idea of honor into the true dignity of man, and the 
consciousness of this possession is his consolation, 
even though having the appearance of baseness and 
the bad opinion of the world. 

To all these Falstaff stands as a contrast. By the 
side of these heroes of honor he seems utterly de- 



HENRY FIFTH AND FALSTAFF 117 

prived of all sense of honor and of shame, and it is not 
possible to him to imitate dignity even in play. A 
respect for the opinion of others and a need of self- 
esteem are foreign to him; it is selfishness alone which 
places this machine in motion. He is the personifi- 
cation of the inferior side of man, of his animal and 
sensual nature. All the spiritual part of man, honor, 
and morality are wanting. Falstaff is all care about 
his subsistence. By his moral stupefaction he holds 
to the natural right of animals. "If the young dace 
be a bait for the old pike," he sees no reason in 
the law of nature why he may not "snap at the sim- 
ple, the insipid, the dull, and the brisk among man- 
kind." 

He has no feeling for the property, welfare, and 
right of another, but robs and steals, surrounds him- 
self with the Gadshills, whom the carriers would not 
trust with a lantern, tries to use the Prince as a 
means for robbing the exchequer, and after the 
Prince's accession to the throne would like to banish 
law and the gallows. 

His influence was great; he was "wise as a serpent," 
but corrupt, and it was not by association with him 
that Prince Hal was made great. He became so in 
spite of such associations, "still listening to the 
spirits of the wise." 

It was not so with Bardolph; so tightly had Fal- 
staff drawn him to his close companionship, that Bar- 
dolph exclaims when he learns of Falstaff 's death: 



118 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

"Would I were with him, wheresome'er he is, either 
in Heaven or Hell." 

Falstaff by his conversation showed an acquaint- 
ance with the Scriptures. He refers to Pharaoh's 
lean kine; to Dives that lived in purple; his recruits 
were " ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth where 
the glutton's dogs lick his sores." His poverty is lik- 
ened to Job's ; like Adam he falls, and in his last hour, 
as death approaches, his memory tries to recall the 
Scripture passage, "The Lord is my Shepherd, . . . 
he maketh me to he down in green pastures." As 
Dame Pistol told it as she went into the other room, 
" A' babbled of green fields." 

Of the associations of Falstaff, Richard Grant 
White says: "Poins, Bardolph, Nym, Pistol, Mrs. 
Quickly, Justice Shallow, Silence and the rest, form 
a group which for its presentation of the humorous 
side of life has never been equalled in literature." 

Ignatius Donnelly claims that Francis Bacon is 
the author of the play in which these characters 
appear, and refers to the attempt made in sport by 
Prince Henry, when, at the Boar's Head Tavern, he 
arranged with Poins to mystify the drawer, as he is 
called by name Francis successively, by the two men. 
Donnelly inquires, "What was the purpose of this 
nonsensical scene, which, as some one has said, is about 
on a par with the wit of a negro-minstrel show? What 
had it to do with the plot of the play? Nothing." 
But, he says, " It enabled the author to bring in the 



HENRY FIFTH AND FALSTAFF 119 

name of Francis twenty times in less than a column, 
and observe how curiously the words Francis are pre- 
sented; five times it is given in italics and fifteen 
times in Roman type." As I read this criticism it 
occurred to me that if Bacon was presenting a lot 
of nonsense to his fellowcountrymen, seemingly for 
their entertainment, when in reality he only intended 
it as a vehicle to carry down to posterity the name of 
Francis Bacon, to be discovered centuries after his 
death by those he never knew, his reputation is more 
blackened than brightened by such deception. Such 
arguments as these of Mr. Donnelly I presume add 
interest to the communication written from Europe 
by Irving Browne, Esq., to the " Albany Law Jour- 
nal," of his visit to Stratford. Mr. Browne says that 
he was enabled by the courtesy of the verger of the 
church to present to his Shakespearean living readers 
an authentic version of Mr. Ignatius Donnelly's so- 
liloquy at the tomb of Shakespeare. 

" Dismiss your apprehension, pseudo-bard, 
For no one wishes to disturb these stones 
Nor cares, if here, or in the outer yard, 
They stow your impudent, deceitful bones. 

" Your foolish colored bust upon the wall, 
With its preposterous expanse of brow, 
Shall rival Humpty Dumpty's famous fall, 
And cheats no cultured Boston people now. 

" Steal deer, hold horses, act your third-rate parts. 
Hoard money, booze, neglect Anne Hathaway, 



120 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

You can't deceive us with your stolen arts; 
Like many another dog, you've had your day. , 

"I have expressed your history in a cipher; 
I 've done your sum, for all ensuing time: 
I don't know what you longer wish to he for, 
Beneath these stones, or in your doggerel rhyme. 

"Get up and dust, or plunge into the river, 
Or walk the chancel with a ghostly squeak, 
You were an ignorant and evil liver, 
Who could not spell, nor write, nor know much Greek. 

"Though you enslaved the ages by your spell, 
And Fame has blown no reputation louder, 
Your cake is dough, for I, by sifting well, 
Have quite reduced your dust to Bacon powder." 

There are not wanting strong supporters of the be- 
lief that Bacon was the author of the plays in which 
we take so much delight. They call upon the friends 
of Shakespeare to produce some plays in Shake- 
speare's writing or show some evidence of his handi- 
work written by himself. I think William Winter in 
his work on "Shakespeare's England" has presented 
a good reason for such absence of written documents. 
He thinks it possible that some of Shakespeare's 
manuscripts perished in the fire that consumed the 
Globe Theatre in 1613. His last days were passed in 
his home at Stratford, within thirty-three years of 
the execution of Charles the First under the Puritan 
Commonwealth of Oliver Cromwell. The Puritan 
spirit was intolerant of the playhouse and of all 



HENRY FIFTH AND FALSTAFF 121 

its works. Shakespeare's daughter Susanna was 
thirty-three at the time of his death and survived 
him thirty-three years. His daughter Judith was 
thirty-one at the time of his death and survived him 
forty-six years. And Mr. Winter says: "The whisper 
of tradition is that both were Puritans, and if so the 
strange and seemingly unaccountable disappearance 
of whatever playhouse papers he may have left at 
Stratford should not be obscure." 

Though the original documents cannot be found 
which Shakespeare penned, his thoughts have been 
saved and transmitted to us for culture, instruction, 
and entertainment, and the historical plays which we 
have briefly examined have brought to our attention 
an additional interest in old English life, the govern- 
ment, and the men who lived in the time of King 
Henry the Fifth. 



THE TEMPEST 

Dr. Edward Dowden, a thoughtful student of 
Shakespeare's dramatic works, has classed them un- 
der four divisions, having reference to the relation 
they sustain to the twenty or more years of the au- 
thor's literary career. 

The periods he designates are called, first, "In the 
Workshop," second, "In the World," third, "Out of 
the Depths," fourth and last, "On the Heights." I 
think the division a happy one. The effusive and pas- 
sionate writings of his early life show a marked de- 
gree of inferiority compared with the productions of 
later years. Lightness and instability mark his first 
poems. Later he mingles with men, studies the world, 
and seeks to find in its associations unalloyed plea- 
sure; then come disappointment and sorrow, shown 
in the relations which the sonnets disclose and in the 
musings of the melancholy Dane. But when we study 
"The Tempest," one of the last if not the last of his 
works, we find him calmly surveying the struggling 
masses of humanity below him, recording the delib- 
erations of an intellect which has passed through the 
fire of affliction and the stern discipline of life and has 
attained a dignified and calm repose. Probably the 
play of "Hamlet" has had more readers and been 



THE TEMPEST 123 

more admired than any other of Shakespeare's plays. 
Hamlet was of noble mind, he had — 

"The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword." 

He was — 

" The expectancy and rose of the fair state, 
The glass of fashion and the mould of form, 
The observed of all observers," 

and yet a cloud of sorrow rested above him and ever- 
present melancholy brooded over him. He saw and 
felt that the world in which he moved was full of 
shams and wickedness. His suspicions of false play 
were corroborated by unmistakable proof, and he 
felt called upon as a minister of fate to attempt to 
right the wrongs about him. His exclamation por- 
trays his feelings : — 

"The time is out of joint: O cursed spite, 
That ever I was born to set it right!" 

He turns for assistance to his mother and finds her in 
alliance with the murderer of his father. Ophelia can 
give him no aid with her sympathy, his friends and 
companions become his spies ! He is a man of intense 
thought but hesitates to act; he is ever planning but 
never coming to execution. The Hamlet of Shake- 
speare is Shakespeare himself at one period of his ca- 
reer, and the disappointments of Hamlet's life, read 
with the sonnets, indicate that when " Hamlet " was 
written, the problems of life were unsettled and mis- 



124 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

understood, and Hamlet's life went out in a darkness 
of despair. 

Truly at this time Shakespeare was struggling in 
the depths, the sun gone down and darkness over him. 
In the character of Prospero, subsequently portrayed 
in "The Tempest," we find that the problems of life 
which had weighed upon his mind and were unsolved 
when "Hamlet" was written, were afterwards better 
understood, and in "The Tempest" they obtained a 
solution not found in other plays. Read "Hamlet" 
first and then take up " The Tempest," and we shall 
find that the doubting, questioning, and distracted 
Hamlet has yielded to the calm, resigned, and loving 
Prospero, who is also thought to represent Shake- 
speare. The sea-girt isle is but a symbol of the world 
in which we five; a brother is displaced by a brother, 
crime is ever present, ambition goads the conqueror 
on, wickedness rules in high places, and sin is ever 
plotting against virtue; but over and above all rules 
with an imperial sway a Providence, aided by super- 
natural powers. Love and Reason rule this island 
with irresistible control, order comes out of the chaos 
which at first threatened its destruction. The earthy 
Sycorax and her foul offspring are subdued by powers 
of light; the wicked mother and her debased son are 
met and are successfully opposed by a thoughtful 
father and his loving daughter. 

The play of "The Tempest" usually occupies the 
first place in the order in which the plays are ar- 



THE TEMPEST 125 

ranged in Shakespeare's works, although in point of 
time it was written last or among the last of his pro- 
ductions. The first printed edition did not appear 
until twelve years after his death. Its first produc- 
tion occurred about the year 1611. The author had 
experienced many changes in his life, commencing as 
a play-actor in minor parts in his dramatic experience, 
then altering and resetting dramas for the stage, and 
finally devoting himself exclusively to the entire com- 
position of those plays which have made his name im- 
mortal. We should naturally expect that increasing 
years and experience would add to his wisdom, and 
that the impressions of a lifetime would be received 
by an admiring audience with eager attention and 
approval. A careful study of this latest play by 
Richard Grant White leads him to the conclusion 
that "in 'The Winter's Tale,' 'The Tempest' and 
'Henry VIII' will be found the very latest produc- 
tions of Shakespeare's pen, and in the first and 
third the reader will find marks of hasty work in 
versification and construction, but the touch of the 
master is unmistakable, quite through them all, and 
'The Tempest' is one of the most perfect of his 
works in all respects." 

The play was performed, perhaps for the first time, 
before King James and the court in November, 1611. 
It is not a play, however, that is often seen on the 
stage in the present day. It is a play better suited to 
be read and studied than attempted in a theatre. The 



126 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

relations of the unseen and spiritual world with the 
temporal cannot be satisfactorily set forth in a play- 
house. In this drama we are called upon to note 
the changes wrought by influences unseen upon this 
material world and its inhabitants. The writer has 
passed beyond the bounds of sight and entered the 
confines of the eternal world, and the play becomes 
one of an ethereal or philosophical character rather 
than spectacular. 

The story is enlarged by Shakespeare from a Ger- 
man romance, and in it full play is given to Shake- 
speare's ever-fertile imagination. Critics differ as to 
the geographical position of the island described, but 
whether the Bermudas or some other group were ac- 
tually intended is of little account. The characters 
bear names indicative of their attributes; the gross 
and sensual Caliban standing, by a transformation 
of the letters of cannibal, for the most degraded per- 
sonage ever seen; while Ariel, like the swift-footed 
and bright-eyed gazelle from which the name may 
have been taken, or from his light and airy nature, 
" ran upon the winds, rose on the curled clouds, and 
in the colors of the rainbow lived." He attracts us 
by his activity and spiritual intelligence and is Pro- 
spero's ready helper in thought and action. Miranda 
is rightly named, and she always wins our "admi- 
ration" in her unaffected modesty and grace. We 
can find in the course and conclusion of Prospero's 
eventful life ,a being filled with bright hope of the 



THE TEMPEST 127 

future, ever foreseeing and controlling by supernat- 
ural aid all with whom he is brought in contact. As 
in other plays, so in this, opposite characters and 
sharp contrasts in life only serve to make the plot 
more interesting and to develop the mental workings 
of the men and women who people Shakespeare's 
world. 

Prospero was the rightful Duke of Milan, but his 
excessive fondness for books, which he prized above 
his dukedom, led him to neglect giving his time and 
attention to the cares of state. These he left with his 
brother, Antonio, who — 

"having both the key 
Of officer and office, set all hearts i' the state 
To what tune pleas'd his ear; that now he was 
The ivy which had hid my [Prospero's] princely trunk 
And sucked my verdure out on V 

As Absalom stole the hearts of his father's subjects, 
so Antonio won the Duke of Milan's followers, and, 
plotting with the king of Naples, secured Prospero's 
banishment. Casting him adrift upon an open sea 
with his daughter Miranda, he expected that nothing 
more would be heard of him. But by "Providence 
divine" the rotton carcass of a boat was guided to an 
island home, where, with its precious cargo, it found 
safe haven. 

Here Caliban is found, one of Shakespeare's greatest 
creations, illustrating the lowest grade of humanity. 
His mother was the sorceress Sycorax, who grew in 



*128 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

the shape of a hoop, rising from the earth but bending 
back again to the same low origin, never rising above 
that which was wholly sensual and degrading; and as 
in this world the spiritual and sensual are continually 
in conflict, so here we meet with the same contest. As 
at the first, sense conquers spirit, so here Ariel the 
spiritual, because he would not "act the earthly and 
abhorred commands" of Sycorax, was for twelve 
years imprisoned in a cloven pine ; released by Pro- 
spero, he renders him afterwards valuable service, a 
representative of thought coming and going at the 
call of his master. Caliban, as the child of Sycorax, 
and an embodiment of sensuality, desired to drag all 
down to his own low level. He had been pitied by 
Prospero, who attempted to educate him; but his vile 
"race, though he did learn something, had that in it, 
which good natures could not abide." He had been 
guarded with human care." Prospero had lodged him 
in his own cell till he sought to violate the honor of 
his child, and said he would have peopled the isle 
with Calibans had he been able. Prospero calls him — 

"A devil, a born devil on whose nature 
Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains, 
Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost; 
And as with age his body uglier grows, 
So his mind cankers." 

Such was the return Prospero was receiving for his 
attempts to educate an anarchist, for Caliban is none 
other. And his type has not passed away; Debs and 



THE TEMPEST 129 

his sympathizers exhibit the degrading passions which 
moved Caliban. Controlled by sense, not reason, their 
treatment must be the same which Prospero deter- 
mined for Caliban. 

" But thy vile race, 
Though thou didst learn, had that in 't which good natures 
Could not abide to be with; therefore wast thou 
Deservedly confin'd into this rock, 
Who hadst deserv'd more than a prison." 

Gratification of the senses was what Caliban sought, 
and he was easily led away by the enticing liquor of 
Trinculo and Stephano; ready to yield them service 
and singing as he goes in his drunken way: — 

"No more dams I'll make for fish; 

Nor fetch in firing, 

At requiring; 
Nor scrape trenchering, nor wash dish; 
'Ban, 'Ban, Ca-Caliban 
Has a new master; get a new man. 
Freedom, hey-day! . . . freedom, hey-day, freedom! " 

Such was the battle-cry of freedom which Caliban 
sung as he followed his new masters; but it was the 
freedom to serve sense and prejudice, not reason. Has 
not the poet in this character portrayed the motives 
which move the anarchist and socialist? To them, 
gratification of sense and passion is stronger than 
reason or spiritual intelligence. No matter by what 
laws or systems rights of property have been acquired, 
"Give us freedom," the anarchist cries, and abolish 
the system of law and order under which the nation 



130 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

has flourished. Wisely does the dramatist teach us 
that intelligence and reason should hold sway, and 
curbs with stern decree this type of sin and ugliness. 
At one time Caliban comes near attaining the fulfill- 
ment of his plots for Prospero's overthrow, but the 
latter's ministering spirit, Ariel, warns him of his 
danger and prevents his threatened destruction. He 
is led to consider the end of all things, and pronounces 
the doom which awaits the whole earth on the day of 
judgment. The solemn and emphatic words will be 
found inscribed on a tablet in the Poets' Corner in 
Westminster Abbey, and when read amid such sur- 
roundings, they seem doubly impressive: — 

"The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, 
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded. 
Leave not a rack behind." 

Prospero's brother, Antonio, expected that his plan 
for his brother's destruction by the elements when 
cast adrift upon the wide sea, would be successful; 
that he himself would reign, the undisputed Duke of 
Milan. Among his followers was the good councillor, 
Gonzalo, a man inclined to look upon life more as a 
comedy than a tragedy, one who was cheerful under 
all circumstances. His comments on the conduct of 
the rough boatswain in the midst of the storm illus- 
trate his humor: "I have great comfort from this fel- 
low; methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; 



THE TEMPEST 131 

his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good 
Fate, to his hanging; make the rope of his destiny our 
cable, for our own doth little advantage. If he be not 
born to be hang'd, our case is miserable." Later in the 
play he humorously gives his views of the socialist's 
ideal commonwealth: — 

"F the Commonwealth I would by contraries 

Execute all things; for no kind of traffic 

Would I admit; no name of magistrate; 

Letters should not be known, riches, poverty, 
i And use of service none; contract, succession. 

Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none; 

No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil; 

No occupation; all men idle, all; 

And women too, but innocent and pure; 

No sovereignty. . . . 

All things in common nature should produce 

Without sweat or endeavour; treason, felony, 

Sword, pike, gun, knife, or need of any engine, 

Would I not have; but nature should bring forth. 

Of its own kind, all foison, all abundance." 

Such ever has been the dream of the socialist, and 
Alonso stops such nonsensical talk with the words: — 
"Prithee no more; thou dost talk nothing to me." 

It may not be amiss here to turn to another play and 
listen to the Archbishop of Canterbury, in his con- 
clusions on the division of labor. 

"Therefore doth Heaven divide 
The state of man in divers functions, 
Setting endeavour in continual motion. 
To which is fixed as an aim or butt. 
Obedience; for so work the honey-bees; 



132 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

Creatures that by a rule in nature teach 
The act of order to a peopled kingdom. 
They have a king and officers of sorts, 
j Where some, like magistrates, correct at home; ! 
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad; 
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings, 
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds, 
Which pillage they with merry march bring home, 
To the tent-royal of their emperor; 
Who busied in his majesty, surveys 
The singing masons building roofs of gold, 
The civil citizens kneading up the honey. 
The poor mechanic porters crowding in 
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate; 
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum, 
Delivering o'er to executors pale 
The lazy yawning drone." 

The conflicts and discords that arise in matters of 
state are for a time forgotten when we pass to a con- 
sideration of family relations. The poem would not 
be complete without its love-story, and how finely it 
has been told ! There is love at first sight, followed by- 
mutual declarations of the parties as the old story is 
told again; but as the course of true love never did 
run smooth, so here the father's apparent opposition 
brings sorrow to the hearts of the lovers, the reason 
for his opposition being " lest too light winning make 
the prize light." Ferdinand's rough treatment by 
Prospero makes the admired Miranda an earnest in- 
terceder in his behalf. He is called an usurper by 
Prospero and set to the hard task of piling up heavy 
logs upon the island. This mean task is made light by 
thoughts of Miranda's sympathy, who wept to see 



THE TEMPEST 133 

him work and offered with her own hand to help him 
on. Ferdinand patiently endured the toil to win the 
prize, and gladly hears Prospero's approval of his love 
at last. 

" All thy vexations 
Were but trials of thy love, and thou 
Hast strongly stood the test. Here afore Heaven, 
I ratify this my rich gift. O Ferdinand, 
Do not smile at me that I boast her off, 
For thou shalt find she will outstrip all praise 
And make it halt behind her." 

In this story the poet recognizes the right of choice, 
first in the maiden and her lover, before the parent's 
sanction is given; then following the parent's sanction 
came those earnest words of warning that no unholy 
passion should melt their honor into lust or mar their 
happiness before — 

"All sanctimonious ceremonies may 
With full and holy rite be ministered." 

Wedlock rests on love, not lust, and following the 
choice of the lovers and the sanction of the parent, 
the state or its official representative should also be 
called upon to cement the union, making the cere- 
mony one in which society as well as the individual 
and family are interested. Renowned Greek god- 
desses appear to celebrate the nuptials. Juno, queen 
of the Gods, pronounces her blessing upon the happy 
couple, while Ceres, the goddess of Agriculture, asks 
that the bounty of the earth may be theirs. The 
gleaners of the harvest appear to show the blessings 



134 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

and happiness which attend and follow labor. Venus 
is kept away, for which neglect, — 

" Her waspish-headed son has broke his arrows, 
Swears he will shoot no more, but play with sparrows." 

The enemies of the duke are in his power on the 
enchanted island, but his purpose is not vengeance, 
but repentance and mercy, as he exclaims, — 

"Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick, 
Yet with my nobler reason 'gainst my fury 
Do I take part. The rarer action is 
In virtue than in vengeance. They being penitent, 
The sole drift of my purpose doth extend 
Not a frown further." 

The mysterious voices heard about the island 
bring the "heart's sorrow and a clear life ensuing" 
to the guilty men; and as the quality of mercy is 
"mightiest in the mightiest," so Prospero extends his 
hearty pardon for the crimes committed against him. 
Ariel had sighed for freedom, and when reconciliation 
had been effected between the natural and spiritual 
his work was done and he was dismissed to his native 
elements, singing as he goes : — 

"Where the bee sucks, there suck I; 

In a cowslip's bell I lie; 

There I couch when owls do cry, 

On the bat's back I do fly 

After summer, merrily, 
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now 
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough." 

The last work of Shakespeare is the greatest in 



THE TEMPEST 135 

its lesson of reconciliation effected between the jar- 
ring and discordant elements which were not under- 
stood by Hamlet; and as Ariel's work was done, so the 
poet felt his greatest task was ended. Perhaps as con- 
cise a summary of this play as can be given is that of 
Dr. Edward Dowden, who says: "Shakespeare seems 
in this play, among other things, to consider the ques- 
tion, what is true freedom? Ariel, incapable of human 
bonds, pants for liberty. Caliban sings his drunken 
song of freedom, and conspires to throw off the yoke 
of Prospero's rule; but Ferdinand, the lover, finds 
true freedom in her he loves; and Prospero, resigning 
his magic powers, finds it in the law of human duty." 
If the analysis of this play has made clearer to any 
one the picture which Shakespeare saw from his high 
vantage-ground as he surveyed struggling humanity 
below him, the writer will have accomplished his 
desire, and perhaps the study may lead us to assent to 
the devotion of Goethe, who said that "at the first 
touch of Shakespeare's genius something inspiring 
hovered above him [Goethe] that he became his for 
life; that he was like one born blind on whom a 
miraculous hand bestowed sight in a moment; and 
that he had a most vivid sense of the infinite expres- 
sion of his existence.' ' A similar realization I think 
men are experiencing to-day as they see human na- 
ture and man's life described in a manner unsur- 
passed except in God's own word. 






OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

It is the purpose of the writer of this paper briefly 
to review the life of a well-known citizen of Massa- 
chusetts, whose writings of prose, poetry, and fiction 
have found a place in all libraries and have proved a 
source of entertainment to those readers who delight 
in sensible, critical, and satirical observations upon 
society as it appeared during the century which has 
lately closed. 

Following a short sketch of his life, I propose to 
refer to some of the subjects upon which he has writ- 
ten, and to quote at length in some cases, believing 
that the best commentary that can be made upon an 
author's writings is the writings themselves. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes was born August 29, 1809. 
The early years of the last century were marked by 
the birth of many noted writers and distinguished 
men. Emerson was born in 1803, Hawthorne in 1804, 
Willis in 1806, Longfellow and Whittier in 1807, while 
Gladstone, Tennyson, Darwin, and Abraham Lin- 
coln were born in the same year with Holmes — in 
1809. 

His father, Rev. Abiel Holmes, was a strictly or- 
thodox Congregational clergyman of New England, 
while his mother, Sarah Wendell, was from an old 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 137 

Dutch family in Albany. The poet was born in Cam- 
bridge, in a gambrel-roofed house which stood near 
the buildings of Harvard University. It pleased Dr. 
Holmes to find the original record of the date of his 
birth in an old family almanac kept by his father; 
opposite the date August 29 was a mark, and at the 
bottom of the page a corresponding mark with the 
letters, "Son b." In his early years he was trained 
by his mother to recite the Shorter Catechism; but 
the words "In Adam's Fall, we sinned all," while 
received by his memory, were not accepted by his 
judgment. His father, he thinks, wished him to be- 
come a clergyman, but the strict puritanical rule of 
the times and the solemn appearance of a clergyman 
who frequented his home, reminding young Holmes 
of an undertaker as he says, led him to desire some 
other profession. He says that in his earliest years he 
was haunted by two spectres, the dread of ghosts and 
the visits of the doctor. The strange sounds at night, 
the creaking of the boards, the howling of winds and 
other noises heard at night, kept him awake and full 
of fear, and these causes of unhappiness, combined 
with tooth-drawing, were remembered by Holmes as 
chief among the terrors of his boyhood. 

After finishing a course of schooling at Andover, he 
entered Harvard College, from which he graduated 
in his twentieth year in the class of '29. The mem- 
bers of the class had a strong hold upon the affections 
of Dr. Holmes, and they in return dearly loved him. 



138 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

For more than fifty class reunions he was chosen as 
the class poet, always enlivening these occasions with 
wit and humor. 

During his college days he turned his attention to 
composition, and showed an inclination to poetry and 
literature. On his graduation he first chose the pro- 
fession of law, studying one year for an experiment, 
he says, uncertain as to what profession he had better 
select. He had a fondness for literature, but thought 
it unwise to depend upon that for a living. He did not 
find the law a congenial occupation, and after a year's 
trial turned his attention to the study of medicine, 
studying for two and one half years in Europe and 
taking his degree at the Harvard Medical School in 
1836. He was youthful in appearance and under 
medium height, and these facts he thought stood 
somewhat in the way of his early success in medi- 
cal practice. Dr. Walter Channing of Boston on 
one occasion took Dr. Holmes with him in consulta- 
tion to visit an invalid lady in a suburb of Boston. 
On their entering the room, the patient rose in her 
bed and said peevishly, "Dr. Channing, why do you 
bring that little boy in here? Take him away, this is 
no place for boys." Dr. Holmes at once withdrew in 
wrath, declining to enter again that sick room. 

In 1839 he accepted the position of teacher of Ana- 
tomy and Physiology in Dartmouth College. In 1847 
he was made Parkman Professor of Anatomy and 
Physiology in the Medical School of Harvard Uni- 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 139 

versity, a position which he retained until the close 
of 1882. Concerning Dr. Holmes's scheme of instruc- 
tion, Professor D wight says: "Any one who has ex- 
perience in lecturing recognizes that he must decide 
whether he will address himself to the higher or lower 
half of the class. Dr. Holmes lectured to the latter; 
it was part of his humanity to do so. He felt a sym- 
pathy for the struggling lad preparing to practice 
whose work is hard, and money scarce." 

"I do not give the best lectures that I can give," 
he said on several occasions. "I should shoot over 
their heads. I try to teach them a little and to teach 
it well. My advice to every teacher less experienced 
than myself would be, therefore : do not fret over the 
details you have to omit, you probably teach too 
many as it is. Individuals may learn a thing well once 
hearing it, but the only way of teaching a whole class 
is by continuous repetition, representation and illus- 
tration in all possible forms. Now and then you will 
have a young man on your benches like the late Waldo 
Burnett, not very often. If you lecture for half a cen- 
tury you cannot pretend to lecture chiefly for men 
like that. A Mississippi craft might as well take an 
ocean steamer in tow. To meet his merits you would 
have to leave the rest of your class behind, and that 
you must not do." 

President Allen of Jefferson College says that his 
instruction has been successful in proportion as it has 
been elementary. "It may be a humiliating state- 



140 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

ment," he says," but it is one which I have found true 
in my experience." 

Dr. Holmes's opportunities for reading and study 
commenced with his home training. His father's 
library contained between one and two thousand vol- 
umes, among them being the English classics and the 
poets. In poetry Pope's Homer was his favorite. 
He read, he says, but few books through, reading in 
books rather than through them, feeling it a task to 
read a book through, but paying careful attention to 
the paragraph or page which attracted him; and 
that left its impression upon his mind which was re- 
tained in his memory. 

When asked how such and such a poem had come 
into his consciousness, he replied that it was a case of 
spontaneous generation, and that it was written 
through him, and he could only refer it to that inspi- 
ration of the Almighty which giveth understanding 
to all his thinking creatures and sends his spiritual 
messages to them with thoughts, as he sent the ra- 
vens with food to Elijah in the wilderness. 

His literary talent commenced to display itself in 
his college course, but it was not until he commenced 
writing papers for the Atlantic Monthly that his genius 
was widely known. The successive numbers of the 
"Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table," as they appeared, 
excited the pleasure and admiration of all readers, 
and brought at once into popularity the magazine in 
which his monthly productions appeared; and it be- 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 141 

came a question whether the Atlantic "floated" Dr. 
Holmes or whether he "floated" the Atlantic. It is 
certain, however, that his writings for that periodical 
gave it a prestige and success which its publishers 
have endeavored since to maintain in the strife of 
many competitors for popular favor. 

The different characters who gathered around the 
breakfast-table have by the report given of their con- 
versation gained for themselves a world-wide notori- 
ety. Their number seemed to be largely increased, 
as the Professor remarked that there were at least 
six personalities distinctly to be recognized as taking 
part in the dialogue between John and Thomas, 
namely: — 

Three Johns: (1) The real John, known only to his 
Maker; (2) John's ideal John, — never the real one, 
and often very unlike him; and (3) Thomas's ideal 
John, — never the real John nor John's John, but 
often very unlike either. 

Three Thomases: (1) The real Thomas; (2) Thom- 
as's ideal Thomas; and (3) John's ideal Thomas. 

Only one of the three Johns is taxed; only one can 
be weighed on a platform balance; but the other two 
are just as important in the conversation. 

The young fellow who answered to the name of 
John hastened to make a practical application of the 
Professor's theory, as the basket of peaches was sent 
on its way to the Professor by way of this unlettered 
Johannes, who appropriated the three peaches that 



142 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

remained in the basket, remarking that there was just 
one apiece for him. The Professor says that he con- 
vinced him that his practical inference was hasty 
and illogical, but in the meantime he had eaten the 
peaches. 

Society, the Professor remarks, is a strong solution 
of books. It draws the virtue out of what is best 
worth reading as hot water draws the strength of tea- 
leaves. A club, he writes, is the next best thing for 
obtaining the literary infusion desired, strung like a 
harp, with about a dozen ringing intelligences, each 
answering to some chord of the macrocosm. They do 
well, he says, to dine together once in a while. A din- 
ner party made up of such elements is the last triumph 
of civilization over barbarism. Nature and art com- 
bine to charm the senses; the equatorial zone of the 
system is soothed by well-studied artifices; the facul- 
ties are off duty and fall into their natural attitudes; 
you see wisdom in slippers and science in a short 
jacket. The publication called The Nation at one 
time was very severe in its criticism of Dr. Holmes's 
writings, and perhaps he had this paper in mind when, 
asked by one of the boarders, if a fellow attacked his 
opinions in print would he reply? He answered: "Not 
I; do you think I don't understand what my friend 
the Professor long ago called the hydrostatic paradox 
of controversy? Don't know what that means? Well, 
I will tell you. You know that if you had a bent 
tube, one arm of which was the size of a pipe-stem and 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 143 

the other big enough to hold the ocean, water would 
stand at the same height in one as in the other. Con- 
troversy equalizes fools and wise men in the same 
way, and the fools know it" 

Dr. Holmes was a zealous advocate of outdoor 
exercise, and riding, boating, and walking were ac- 
tively participated in by him at all times. Of the lat- 
ter he says: " I do not deny the attractions of walking; 
I have bored this ancient city through and through 
in my travels, until I know it as an old inhabitant of 
a Cheshire knows his cheese." He expressed great 
pleasure in the rambles he took, and asserted that 
walking is an immeasurably fine invention of which 
old age ought constantly to avail itself. The pleasure 
of exercise is due first to a purely physical impression, 
and secondly to a sense of power in action. In walk- 
ing, the will and muscles are so accustomed to work 
together, and perform their task with so little expen- 
diture of force, that the intellect is left comparatively 
free. The mental pleasure in walking as such is the 
sense of power over all our moving machinery. 

Perhaps the pleasantest and most attractive walk 
to which the Professor refers is his last one with the 
schoolmistress, when she accepted his proposal to 
take the long path with him which led through life. 
"The Autocrat " was published in 1858. It was fol- 
lowed in 1859 by "The Professor at the Breakfast- 
Table," and fourteen years later "The Poet at the 
Breakfast-Table" appeared. 



144 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

The talk of the breakfast-table is on a variety of 
subjects and affords a fine opportunity for the play of 
Dr. Holmes's wit and humor, as well as sound com- 
mon sense and criticism of different subjects which 
hold the attention of many readers. Occasionally the 
boarders were delighted with some choice bit of 
poetry, while many an anecdote and reminiscence of 
his experience in daily life found a place here. "The 
Autocrat" found such a favorable reception that the 
Atlantic continued to publish his writings, under 
other titles but in a similar vein of composition. 

As our Club has among its members several profes- 
sional men, it may not be out of place to notice Dr. 
Holmes's comments upon them as found in " The 
Poet at the Breakfast-Table." 

The lawyers, he says, are the cleverest men, the 
ministers are the most learned, and the doctors the 
most sensible. The business of the lawyers, he says, 
is as unsympathetic as Jack Ketch's; there is nothing 
humanizing in their relations with their fellow men. 
They go for the side that retains them; they defend a 
man they know to be a rogue, and not very rarely 
throw suspicion on the man they know to be innocent. 
"Mind you," he says, "I am not finding fault with 
them. Every side of a case has a right to the best 
statement it admits of, but I say it does not tend to 
make them sympathetic. Suppose in a case of Fever 
vs. Patient the doctor should side with either party 
according to whether the old miser or his expectant 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 145 

heir was his employer. Suppose the minister should 
side with the Lord or the Devil according to the sal- 
ary offered and other incidental advantages when 
the soul of a sinner was in question — you can see 
what a piece of work it would make of their sympa- 
thies. . . . 

"The ministers come next in point of talent. I like 
to talk with them, they are interesting men, full of 
good feelings, hard workers, always foremost in good 
deeds, and on the whole the most efficient civilizing 
class. The trouble is that so many of them work in 
harness, and it is pretty sure to chafe somewhere. 
They feed us on canned meats mostly. They cripple 
our instincts and reason, and give us a crutch of doc- 
trine. I have talked with a good many of them, of 
all sorts of belief, and I don't think they are quite 
so easy in their minds — the greater number of them, 
— nor so clear in their conviction as one would think 
to hear them lay down the law in the pulpit." 

As Dr. Holmes did not wish to follow his father's 
calling as a minister, and as, after one year's study of 
the law, he left that profession for the study of medi- 
cine, we are not surprised to find him more eulogistic 
of the doctors, who are, he says, the least learned of 
the professional men in this country. They have not 
half the general culture of the lawyers, nor a quarter 
of that of the ministers. " I rather think, though," he 
says, "they are more agreeable to the common run 
of people than the men with the black coats or the 



146 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

men with the green bags. People can swear before 
them if they want to, and they can't very well before 
ministers. — I don't care whether they want to swear 
or not, they don't want to be on their good behavior. 
Besides, the minister has a little smack of the sexton 
about him; he comes when the people are in extremist 
but they don't send for him every time they make a 
slight moral slip, — tell a he, for instance, or smuggle a 
silk dress through the Custom House; but they call in 
the doctor when a child is cutting a tooth or gets a 
splinter in its finger. So it does not mean much to 
send for him — only a pleasant chat about the news 
of the day; for putting the baby to rights does n't 
take long. — Besides, everybody does n't like to talk 
about the next world; people are modest in their de- 
sires and find this world as good as they deserve, but 
everybody likes to talk physic; everybody loves to 
hear of strange cases; people are eager to tell their 
doctor of the wonderful cures they have heard of; 
they want to know what is the matter with somebody 
or other who is suffering from 'a complication of dis- 
eases'; and above all to get a hard name, Greek or 
Latin, for some complaint which sounds altogether 
too commonplace in plain English"; and for these 
reasons he thinks doctors are generally welcome in 
most companies. 

A successful venture was made by Dr. Holmes in 
the writing of romances, commencing with "Elsie 
Venner," which also appeared first in the pages of the 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 147 

Altantic. The purpose of the story Dr. Holmes ex- 
plained in a letter written under date of September 
13, 1860, to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, declaring 
it to be his purpose to write a story with enough of 
interest in its characters to attract the popular atten- 
tion, and under cover of this to stir that mighty ques- 
tion of automatic agency in its relation to self-deter- 
mination, doing this by means of an outside agency 
predetermining certain traits of character and certain 
apparently voluntary acts, such as the common judg- 
ment of mankind and the tribunals of law and theo- 
logy have been in the habit of recognizing as sin and 
crime. 

This thought is further illustrated in the story it- 
self, in the Professor's reply to Bernard Langdon's in- 
quiry as to preinherited dispositions. 

Says the Professor: "Treat bad men exactly as if 
they were insane. They are insane, out of health, 
morally. Reason, which is food to sound minds, is not 
tolerated, still less assimilated, unless administered 
with the greatest caution, — perhaps not at all. 
Avoid collision with them as far as you honorably can. 
Keep your temper if you can, for one angry man is 
as good as another. Restrain them from violence 
promptly, completely, and with the least possible in- 
jury, just as in the case of maniacs. Contemplate 
them charitably, remembering that nine tenths of 
their heredity comes from outside influences, drunken 
ancestors, abuse in childhood, bad company, from 



148 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

which you happily have been preserved and for some 
of which you as a member of society may be fraction- 
ally responsible. I think also there are special influ- 
ences which work in the blood like ferments." 

The story is illustrated with lively sketches of New 
England's former social life as described in Colonel 
Sprowle's party, given to honor his daughter on her 
attaining the age for introduction into society. There 
is the discussion as to where the border line of invita- 
tions shall be drawn, the careful preparations made 
for the swell event. The colonel proposed to have 
dancing, which some claim never brought blessings on 
the house having it. The colonel said he did n't believe 
in these notions, and if a man happened to be struck 
dead the night after he had been going to a ball 
he should n't call it a judgment but a coincidence. 
The dancing, however, prevented the orthodox minis- 
ter from letting his granddaughter go to the party. 
Deacon Soper, one of the guests, thought a little 
wine was not objectionable at the entertainment, be- 
ing, as the author says, one of those consistent Chris- 
tians who stick firmly by the first miracle and Paul's 
advice to Timothy. The party was a success in the 
eyes of the host, his family and guests, as well as the 
children at different homes, who were subsequently 
provided for by means of various oranges and sweet- 
meats, and for whom, the author says, it will often 
require great exertion on the parent's return to freight 
himself so as to meet their reasonable expectations. 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 149 

While we are entertained and interested by Dr. 
Holmes's Breakfast-Table talks and enjoy his descrip- 
tion of old New England life, so well told in "Elsie 
Venner " and the "Guardian Angel," I think he has 
greater fame as a poet than in any other department 
of literature. There are poems of patriotism, of life, 
and those commemorative of the War, of class re- 
unions, and of old age. 

Among his earlier poems "Old Ironsides" is one of 
the favorites with aspiring orators in the high schools 
of our country, written by Dr. Holmes in September, 
1830, when there were statements in the newspapers 
that the Secretary of the Navy had recommended a 
disposal to be made of Old Ironsides, the popular 
name by which the frigate Constitution had been 
called. The protest called forth by this announce- 
ment prevented the sale or destruction of this vener- 
able craft, and this poem tersely expressed the indig- 
nation which the proposal of the Secretary of the 
Navy had aroused. While "The Deacon's Master- 
piece; or, The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay," "The 
Broomstick Train," "The Iron Gates," "Bunker- 
Hill Battle," "Before the Curfew," and many of 
the poems read at class reunions, on birthday and 
national occasions, are much read and admired, 
I think the popular estimate of the best is di- 
vided between "The Chambered Nautilus" and 
"The Last Leaf." The latter was suggested by the 
appearance in the streets of Boston of a venerable 



150 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

relic of the Revolution, said to be one of the party 
who threw the tea overboard in Boston Harbor. He 
was a fine monumental specimen, in his cocked hat 
and knee-breeches, and Dr. Holmes says that the 
smile with which he as a young man greeted him 
meant no disrespect to an honored fellowcitizen 
whose costume was out of date, but whose patriot- 
ism never changed with years. 

Our former president had a great liking for the poem 
and repeated it from memory to Governor Andrew, 
as the governor himself told Dr. Holmes. 

THE LAST LEAF 

I saw him once before 
As he passed by the door, 

And again 
The pavement stones resound. 
As he totters o'er the ground 

With his cane. 

They say that in his prime, 
Ere the pruning knife of Time 

Cut him down, 
Not a better man was found 
By the crier on his round 

Through the town. 

But now he walks the streets, 
And he looks at all he meets, 

Sad and wan, 
And he shakes his feeble head, 
That it seems as if he said, 

"They are gone." 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 151 

The mossy marbles rest 
On the lips that he has prest 

In their bloom, 
And the names he loved to hear 
Have been carved for many a year 

On the tomb. 

My grandmamma has said — 
Poor old lady, she is dead 

Long ago — 
That he had a Roman nose, 
And his cheek was like a rose 

In the snow. 

But now his nose is thin, 
And it rests upon his chin 

Like a staff. 
And a crook is in his back, 
And a melancholy crack 

In his laugh. 

I know it is a sin 
For me to sit and grin 

At him here; 
But the old three-cornered hat, 
And the breeches, and all that, 

Are so queer! 

And if I should live to be 
The last leaf upon the tree 

In the spring, 
Let them smile, as I do now. 
At the old forsaken bough 

Where I cling. 

I ought not to overlook Dr. Holmes's fondness for 
society and for the group of friends which he gath- 
ered around him. Prominent among his social meet- 



152 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

ings was the Saturday Club. Beginning with three or 
four, consisting of Emerson and others, and continu- 
ally increasing in numbers until it included Motley, 
Hawthorne, Whittier, Lowell, Longfellow, E. It. 
Hoar, Professor Agassiz, Appleton, Sumner, Governor 
Andrew, Whipple, and Fields, with many more, out- 
side of his own home, nothing else gave him so much 
pleasure as this club. He held its members in high 
regard, and in later years seemed to recall with sad- 
ness the memory of those who had gone. 

He says of the club meetings: "People, the right 
kind of people, meet at a dinner-party as two ships 
meet and pass each other at sea. They exchange a 
few signals, ask each other's reckoning, where from, 
where bound; perhaps one supplies the other with a 
little food or a few dainties; then they part to see each 
other no more." 

Dr. Holmes found warm friends all over the United 
States, who delighted to do him honor. At one time, 
the Bohemian Club, while celebrating a festal even- 
ing in San Francisco, chose Dr. Holmes to member- 
ship and so telegraphed to him. The message reached 
Boston late at night and no reply was expected. How- 
ever, before the club adjourned, the messenger boy 
brought the following despatch : — 

" Message to San Francisco: Whisper low. 
Asleep in bed an hour or more ago, 
While on his peaceful pillow he reclines, 
Say to his friend who sent these loving lines. 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 153 

Silent, unanswering still to friendship true, 
He smiles in slumber, for he dreams of you." 

Dr. Holmes's popularity made him a favorite as a 
lecturer, but lecturing was not particularly pleasant 
to him. In 1856 he thus announced his terms: "My 
terms when I stay over night are fifteen dollars and 
expenses, a room with a fire in it in a public house, 
and a mattress to sleep on, not a feather-bed." 

The landlady humorously described his pleasant 
traits. "He was a man," she says, "who loved to 
stick around home as much as any cat you ever see 
in your life. He used to say he 'd as lief have a tooth 
pulled as go anywhere. Always got sick, he said, 
when he went away, and never sick when he did n't; 
pretty nigh killed himself in going about lecterin' two 
or three winters. Talkin' in cold country lyceums, as 
he used to say; goin' home to cold parlors and bein' 
treated to cold apples and cold water, and then goin' 
up into a cold bed in a cold chamber and coram' home 
next morning with a cold in his head as bad as a horse 
distemper. 

"Then he 'd look kind of sorry for havin* said it, 
and tell how kind some of the good women was to 
him. How one spread an eiderdown comforter for him, 
and another fixed up somethin' hot for him just after 
thelecter and another one said, * There now, you 
smoke that cigar of yours after the lecter just as if 
you was at home'; and if they 'd all been like that 
he 'd have gone on lecterin' forever. 



154 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

"As it was he got pooty nigh enough of it and pre- 
ferred nateral death to puttin' himself out of the 
world by such violent means as lecterin'. " 

He was always sincere in his utterances, and once, 
when a man of no great note died, his friends tried to 
get Dr. Holmes to say a few kind words about the de- 
ceased, which might be published. But he declined. 
"Do you see," he said, "they want to engage me in 
the embalming business, but I cannot help to preserve 
this fly in amber." 

As Dr. Holmes advanced in life his verses corre- 
spondingly expressed the feelings of his years. In 
"The Iron Gate" he says, on his seventieth birthday 
(August 29, 1879),— 

" Youth longs and manhood strives, but age remembers, 
Sits by the raked-up ashes of the past, 
Spreads its thin hands above the whitening embers, 
That warm its creeping life-blood till the last." 

Thus he wrote at the close of 1879, yet in 1886 he 
made with his daughter a trip to Europe, where he met 
with something like a royal reception, and the record 
of his journey appears in the volume "Our Hundred 
Days in Europe." 

He was strongly attached to his native land, and 
had a pride in the race from which he sprang. He 
had a sunny temperament; he lived to a good old age, 
and died suddenly, while talking with his son at his 
home in Boston, at the age of eighty-five. 

As he grew old he missed the companions who, one 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 155 

after another, passed away. At eighty-two he writes 
to Whittier : "We are lonely, very lonely in these last 
years. . . . We were on deck together as we began 
the voyage of life two generations ago. A whole gen- 
eration passed, and the succeeding one found us in 
the cabin with a goodly number of coevals. Then the 
craft which held us began going to pieces, until a few 
of us were left on the raft pieced together of its frag- 
ments. And now the raft has at last parted, and you 
and I are left, clinging to the solitary spar which is all 
that still remains afloat of the sunken vessel." 

Another poet has written: "To live in hearts we 
leave behind is not to die." In such hearts is the re- 
membrance of Dr. Holmes still kept alive. A tree is 
known by its fruits, and it has been the purpose of the 
writer to pluck from the gathered harvests of this 
author such fruits as indicate the quality of his mind 
and character. 

While we have not had the pleasure of looking into 
his blue-gray eye or receiving the hearty grasp of his 
hand, it is a pleasure to find the record of his life so 
carefully kept and handed down, and his thoughts so 
carefully preserved for recreation and delight by our 
firesides. 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

1803-1882 

Concord was the home of Ralph Waldo Emerson 
between the years 1835 and 1882, the time of his 
death. This place is renowned for the heroic fight 
made here by the colonists at the old North Bridge, 
on the morning following the night ride of Paul Re- 
vere from Boston through Lexington and adjoining 
towns. 

At one end of the bridge crossing the Concord 
River stands the statue of the Minute Man grasping 
with his right hand a flintlock, while his left holds 
the plough. The inscription on the monument is 
taken from Emerson's poem : — 

"By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, 
Here once the embattled farmers stood 
And fired the shot heard round the world." 

In the centre of the town Wright's Tavern, built in 
1747, still stands; here Major Pitcairn made his fa- 
mous boast while stirring his toddy previous to the 
fight on the April morning, that " before the day was 

over he would stir the blood of the d d Yankee 

rebels." The Jones house, built in 1744, still shows 
the bullet-hole made by the British in their attack 
upon the town. Near by stands the Old Manse, where 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 157 

Hawthorne wrote his tales. Henry Thoreau, Louisa 
May Alcott, Amos Bronson Alcott, and Judge E. 
Rockwood Hoar lived near the home of Emerson. 
Here still lives the noted correspondent of the Spring- 
field Republican, Mr. Frank B. Sanborn. 

The town has retained its primitive condition to a 
great extent; it is still under the government of a 
board of selectmen chosen in an annual town meeting, 
as in former days. 

It will readily occur to the stranger visiting this 
quiet town, adorned with beautiful shade-trees and 
wide streets, that its quiet beauty and distance from 
busy city life well adapt it for the home of the famous 
authors who have lived and died there. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston, May 
25, 1803, being the third of a family of eight children. 
He was the son of Reverend William Emerson and 
Ruth Haskins Emerson. It is said that Ralph Waldo 
had a minister for an ancestor in every generation for 
eight generations, either on the paternal or maternal 
side. His father died when he was eight years old, 
and careful economy was required in order to bring 
up the family and educate the children properly. 

After her husband's death, Mrs. Emerson removed 
to a house on Beacon Street, where the Athenaeum 
now stands; she kept some boarders, among them 
Lemuel Shaw, afterwards Chief Justice of the Su- 
preme Court of this state. The poverty of the family 
was such that young Emerson had to endure the rail- 



158 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

leries of his companions, who, knowing that the Emer- 
son brothers had but one overcoat between them, 
asked them ironically, "Whose turn is it to wear the 
coat?" 

The Emerson home was but a short distance from 
Boston Common, and Waldo and Charles used to 
drive their mother's cow there to pasture. 

Emerson was fitted for college at the public schools 
of Boston, entered Harvard College at the age of four- 
teen, and graduated when eighteen. While in college 
he won a Bowdoin prize for a dissertation on "The 
Character of Socrates," also a Boylston prize of five 
dollars for declamation, which he sent home, hoping 
his mother would buy a shawl with it; but he found 
on his next visit home that it had been used to pay 
the baker. 

He was chosen Class Poet while in college. Twenty- 
five years later, in 1866, he received from Harvard 
University the highest honor in its gift, — the degree 
of Doctor of Laws. 

For five years after leaving college, in 1821, he 
taught school. In 1826 he was "approbated" to 
preach, and in 1829 was ordained as a colleague to 
Reverend Henry Ware of the Second Unitarian 
Church in Boston. In 1832 he resigned his charge, 
much to the regret of his parishioners, having an- 
nounced his unwillingness longer to administer the 
sacrament of the Lord's Supper. There is, I think, but 
one sermon of his that has been published, and that 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 159 

is the one delivered when he gave up his pastoral 
charge and left the pulpit to appear before the public 
as a lecturer. In this sermon he stated that, having 
given particular attention to the subject, he was led 
to the conclusion that Jesus did not intend to estab- 
lish an institution for perpetual observance when he 
ate the Passover with his disciples, and further that 
it is not expedient to celebrate it as we do. In conclu- 
sion he stated that it was his desire, "in the office of 
a Christian minister to do nothing which he could 
not do with his whole heart"; and having said this, 
he added: " I have said all, I am only stating my want 
of sympathy with it. Neither should I ever have ob- 
truded this opinion upon other people had I not been 
called by my office to administer it. I am content 
that it stand to the end of the world if it please men 
and please Heaven, and I shall rejoice in the good it 
produces. As it is the prevailing opinion and feeling 
in our religious community that it is an indispensable 
part in the pastoral office to administer this ordi- 
nance, I am about to resign into your hands that office 
which you have confided to me." 

While the writer does not admit the soundness of 
the arguments advanced, or the wisdom of the deci- 
sion reached, by Mr. Emerson in this sermon, I must 
concede that his action was taken conscientiously 
and with a firm belief that it was his duty to resign 
his charge as pastor. His resignation was received by 
his parishioners with much regret, and his son states 



160 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

that one lady approached the pastor at the close of 
the sermon and sorrowfully said to him: "You have 
taken away my Lord, and I know not where you have 
laid him." 

One entry in his journal of the Sabbath reads: 
"The Sabbath is my best debt to the past and binds 
me to some gratitude still. It brings me that frankin- 
cense out of a sacred antiquity." 

President Charles W. Eliot stated that the essence 
of Emerson's teaching concerning man's nature is 
compressed into the famous verse, — 

" So nigh is grandeur to our dust. 
So near is God to man, 
When Duty whispers low, 'Thou must/ 
The youth replies, ' I can.' " 

In December, 1832, he sailed for Europe, where he 
remained nearly a year. On his return he entered the 
field as a lecturer, and subsequently made repeated 
lecturing tours in New England and the Western 
States. 

In 1835 he took up his residence in Concord, and 
in 1836 published his work on "Nature." This work 
received sharp criticism, and it took twelve years to 
sell five hundred copies. "Transcendentalism" was 
the name by which his various addresses and lectures 
were stigmatized, and their tendency was to produce 
a reaction against formalism and tradition. Between 
1841 and 1869 he published and delivered many lec- 
tures and poems. One writer calls his poems "the 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 161 

most impressive part of Emerson's bequest to litera- 
ture"; says that he felt as a poet and worked as an 
artist, and by that rare and perfect combination 
mounts to his commanding place in American litera- 
ture. In his poem "Each and All," he writes: — 

"I thought the sparrow's note from heaven, 
Singing at dawn in the alder bough; 
I brought him home, in his nest, at even; 
He sings the song, but it cheers not now, 
For I did not bring home the river and sky; — 
He sang to my ear, — they sang to my eye. 
The delicate shells lay on the shore; 
The bubbles of the latest wave 
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave; 
And the bellowing of the savage sea 
Greeted their safe escape to me. 
I wiped away the weeds and foam, 
I fetched my sea-born treasures home; 
But the poor unsightly noisome things 
Had left their beauty on the shore, 
With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar." 

I think we have all had this experience as we care- 
fully picked up beautiful shells and brought them 
home, only to be packed away in some cupboard or 
attic, their charms having departed, when separated 
from their ocean home. 

Emerson told a friend that he liked his poems best 
because it was not he who wrote them; because he 
could not write them by will; he could say: "I will 
write an essay " ; and, he added, " I can breathe at any 
time, but I can only whistle when the right pucker 
comes." 



162 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

"Nature symbolizes the soul, for behind both are 
the great laws. And the poet affirms the laws; prose 
busies itself with exceptions, with the local and indi- 
vidual. The senses imprison us. It cost thousands 
of years to make the motion of the earth suspected. 
Slowly by comparing thousands of observations there 
dawned on some mind a theory of the Sun, and we 
found the astronomical fact. But the astronomy is 
in the mind. The senses affirm that the earth stands 
still and the Sun moves." 

By reading the law behind seeming fact, the poet 
cheers and points the way when it seems dark, as the 
guide who takes his course by the stars when the road 
winds and baffles him. Seeing the beauty and har- 
mony of the universe and that our great solid earth 
is but a transient note in it, our ideas are freed and 
we can look on death more calmly, surmising that 
"the noble house of Nature which we inhabit has 
temporary uses and that we can afford to leave it one 
day, as great conquerors have burned their ships when 
once landed on the wished-for shore." 

All through his life Emerson kept a journal. On 
the first leaf of his journal for 1837 he wrote: "This 
book is my savings bank. I grow rich because I have 
somewhere to deposit my earnings; and fractions are 
worth more to me because corresponding fractions 
are waiting here that shall be made integers by their 
additions." 

He was fond of taking long walks daily, meditat- 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 163 

ing as he walked; and on his return to his study he 
wrote down his thoughts. He said, "When you have 
worn out your shoes you will find the strength of the 
sole leather has gone into the fibre of your body." 
Warmth, water, wild air, and walking were his medi- 
cines. 

He sometimes took his note-book with him, but 
more often recorded the thought on his return; even 
in winter storms he was no stranger to the woods, and 
liked to walk alone at night for the inspiration he 
found in the stars. 

In a letter to his wife just before moving, telling 
why he preferred to live in Concord rather than Ply- 
mouth, as she had hoped, he says: "Wherever I go, 
therefore, I guard and study my rambling propensi- 
ties with a care that is ridiculous to people, but to me 
is the care of my high calling." 

In 1857 after a happy walk with Thoreau, he wrote 
in his journal: — 

"I thought that to Nero advertising for a new 
pleasure, a walk in the woods should have been of- 
fered. 'T is one of the secrets for dodging old age." 

In a passage headed " To the Woods " he says: — 

"Whoso goeth in your paths readeth the same cheer- 
ful lesson whether he be a young child or a hundred 
years old. Comes he in good fortune or in bad, ye say 
the same things and from age to age; ever the needles 
of the pine grow and fall, the acorns on the oak; the 
maples redden in autumn, and at all times of the year 



164 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

the ground-pine and pyrola bud and root under foot. 
What is called fortune and what is called time by men 
ye know them not. 

"Men have not language to describe one mo- 
ment of your life. When ye shall give me somewhat 
to say, give me also the time wherein to say it. Give 
me a tune like your winds, brooks or birds, for the 
songs of men grow old when they are repeated; but 
yours, though a man has heard them for seventy 
years, are never the same, but always new, like Time 
itself or like love." 

When from his car window he saw the woods, he 
said, "When I pass them on the way to the city how 
they reproach me ! " 

He admired the simplicity and fortitude of the 
Massachusetts farmer's life in those days, and saw and 
recorded the stern rustic conditions. "The farmer 
gets two hundred dollars while the merchant gets 
two thousand dollars. But the farmer's two hundred 
is far safer and is more likely to remain with him. It 
was heavy to lift from the soil, but it was for that 
reason more carefully bestowed and will stay where 
it was put, so that the two seem to turn out at last to 
be equivalent." 

An extract from his journal reads: "I like people 
who can do things. When Edward and I struggled in 
vain to drag our big calf into the barn, the Irish girl 
put her fingers in the calf's mouth and led her in 
directly." 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 165 

In a letter to Carlyle, dated May 10, 1838, he says: 
"I occupy or improve, as we Yankees say, two acres 
of God's earth; on which is my house, my kitchen- 
garden, my orchard of 30 young trees, my empty 
barn. Besides my house, I have $22,000, whose in- 
come in ordinary years is 6 per cent, besides income of 
winter lectures $800. Well, with this income here at 
home I am a rich man." 

In his journal he answers some caviler who said: 
"Your pears cost you more than mine which I buy." 
— "Yes, they are costly, but we all have expensive 
vices: you play at billiards, I at pears." 

His fondness for home and country life is thought- 
fully recorded in his poem written after a long ocean 
voyage: — 

"Good-bye, proud world, I'm going home." 



"O, when I am safe in my sylvan home, 
I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome; 
And when I am stretched beneath the pines. 
Where the evening star so holy shines, 
I laugh at the lore and the pride of man, 
At the Sophist Schools and the learned clan; 
For what are they all in their high conceit, 
When man in the bush with God may meet?" 

The contentment shown by Emerson's letter to 
Carlyle and in the poem just quoted has led me to 
note the contrast suggested by Andrew Carnegie 
in his book, "The Problems of To-day," in which he 
says that "wealth lessens rather than increases hu- 
man happiness, and that the never-to-be forgotten 



166 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

truth is, that huge fortunes, so far as their owners are 
concerned, are as useless as the Star and Garter are 
to their possessors, and not so ornamental; and this 
truth, above all, that these fortunes cannot give their 
owners more out of life worth having than is secured 
by a competence so modest that men beginning as 
workers can, with health, ability and sobriety, win 
for old age." 

Emerson has been a great educator of the people, 
and in his lectures he endeavored to instruct rather 
than amuse his audiences, and they were at times 
small as well as large. He told Charles Mackay once, 
who said that he had only thirty at a lecture, that he 
lectured once at Montreal where he had only seven 
persons present. 

He was uneasy at seeing the multitude of books for 
young people which had begun to appear, and which 
prevented their reading the standard authors. He 
required his son to read two pages of Plutarch's Lives 
every school day and ten pages on Saturdays and in 
vacation. I think if we paid more attention to Em- 
erson's three practical rules, our reading would be 
more profitable for us. 

First: Never read any book that is not a year old. 

Second : Never read any but famed books. 

Third: Never read any but what you like; or in 
Shakespeare's phrase, — 

" No profit goes where is no pleasure ta'en. 
In brief, sir, study what you most affect." 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 167 

He thought that the present age needed books to 
awaken the imagination and that novels were a good 
tonic for men who are ever lapsing into a beggarly- 
habit where everything that is not ciphering is hus- 
tled out of sight. 

The elaborate organization of athletic sports, as at 
present developed in our schools and colleges, was not 
seen in Emerson's day, but we find Emerson giving 
sound reasons for their maintenance. 

"Your boy," he says, "hates the grammar and 
gradus, and loves guns, fishing-rods, horses, and boats. 
Well, the boy is right and you are not fit to direct his 
bringing-up, if your theory leaves out his gymnastic 
training. Football, cricket, archery, swimming, skat- 
ing, climbing, fencing, riding are lessons in the art of 
power, which it is his main business to learn. Be- 
sides, the gun, fishing-rod, boat, and horse constitute, 
among all who use them, secret free-masonries." Can 
a completer justification of athletic sports be given 
than that? 

He pithily said as he spoke of personal work, 

"Every man's taskis his life-preserver." "The King's 

Servant is the King himself" is a motto, quoted from 

the Persian, that was a favorite with him; also the 

Latin verse: — 

"At mihi summit, pro Ganymede manus." 
(My own right hand my cup-bearer shall be.) 

From boyhood to age he was as independent as 
might be of service from others, but was thoughtful 



168 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEAKE 

of their needs. He much admired Napoleon for his 
advice to Mrs. Balcombe when on a rugged path at 
St. Helena they met porters with heavy burdens, 
whom she ordered to stand aside. Napoleon drew her 
back, saying, "Respect the burden, madam." 

He taught that if we hope to reform men we must 
begin at school. In city and state and nation we have 
been carrying on this system. We have advocated this 
in Cuba; have sent teachers to the Philippines, and 
sought to redeem the South by schools. 

He taught that concentration was the one prudence 
of life; the one evil, dissipation. He said, "You must 
elect your work; you shall take what your brain can 
and drop all the rest." The reason that he gives for 
this is that only by concentration can the youth ar- 
rive at the stage of doing something with his know- 
ledge, or get beyond the stage of absorbing and arrive 
at the capacity for producing. 

He taught that nature arms each man with some 
faculty, large or small, which enables him to do easily 
some feat impossible to any other, and this makes 
him necessary to society, and this faculty should de- 
termine the man's career. 

The education of man by manual labor was a favo- 
rite doctrine with Emerson. He also insists that true 
culture must open to the sense of beauty, and that "a 
man is a beggar who only lives to be useful." He did 
not accept the conclusion advanced that the press had 
in a large measure stripped eloquence of its former 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 169 

influence, and he taught that if there was a country 
where eloquence was a power, it was the United 
States. His definition of eloquence is simple: "Know 
your fact; hug your fact; for the essential thing is 
heat, and heat comes of sincerity. Speak what you do 
know and believe, and are personally in it, and are 
answerable for every word. Eloquence is the power 
to translate a truth into language perfectly intelligi- 
ble to the person to whom you speak." 

The spirit and substance of Emerson's teaching 
are expressed in the following words, spoken to the 
literary societies of Dartmouth College, which George 
William Curtis declared touched the highest mark of 
American eloquence. 

"You will hear every day the maxims of a low pru- 
dence. You will hear that the first duty is to get land 
and money, place and name. 

" * What is this truth you seek?' 'What is this 
Beauty?' men will ask with derision. If nevertheless 
God has called any of you to explore truth and beauty 
be bold, be firm, be true. When you shall say, 'As 
others do, so will I; I renounce (I am sorry for it) my 
early visions; I must eat the good of the land and let 
learning and romantic expectations go until a more 
convenient season,' then dies the man in you. Then 
once more perish the buds of art and poetry and sci- 
ence, as they have died already in a thousand thou- 
sand men. The hour of that choice is the crisis of 
your history, and see that you hold yourself fast by 
the intellect. 



170 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

"Why should you renounce your right to traverse 
the starlit deserts of truth, for the premature com- 
forts of an acre, house, and barn? 

"Truth also has its roof, and bed and board. 
Make yourself necessary to the world, and mankind 
will give you bread, and if not store of it, yet such as 
shall not take away your property in all men's pos- 
sessions, in art, in nature, and in hope." 

Luxury had hardly been developed in Emerson's 
day, but he foresaw its coming, and entered his pro- 
test against it. We spend our incomes for paint and 
paper, for a hundred trifles, we know not what, and 
not for the things of a man. Our expense is almost all 
for conformity. It is for cake we run in debt; it is 
not the intellect, not the heart, not beauty, not wor- 
ship that costs us so much. He says, "I think I see 
the place and duties for a nobleman in every society; 
but it is not to drink wine and ride in a coach, but to 
guide and adorn life for the multitude by forethought, 
by elegant studies, by perseverance, self-devotion, and 
the remembrance of the humble old friend; by mak- 
ing his life secretly beautiful." 

The story is told that one of the old presidents of 
Harvard College (Mr. John Thornton Kirkland) 
used to throw his sermons into a barrel, where they 
went to pieces and got mixed up, and that when he 
was going to preach, he fished out what he thought 
would be about enough for a sermon and patched the 
leaves together as he best might. Mr. Cabot, who 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 171 

knew all Emerson's literary habits, says he used to 
fish out the number of leaves he wanted for a lecture 
in somewhat the same way. 

When Emerson visited England, he met Words- 
worth, Carlyle, George Eliot, and other noted au- 
thors. Carlyle was much disturbed because Emerson 
did not agree with him in a devil, and to convert him 
took him among all the horrors of London, the gin- 
shops, etc., and finally to the House of Commons, ply- 
ing him at every turn with the question, "Do you 
believe in a devil noo?" 

George Eliot mentions meeting Emerson, and in 
her letter to Mrs. Hennell in July, 1848, she writes: 
"I have seen Emerson — the first man I have ever 
seen." That she had a great admiration for his works 
is shown by her letter of August 27, 1860, written to 
the same Mrs. Hennell, in which she states: "I have 
been reading this morning for my spiritual good Em- 
erson's 'Man the Reformer/ which comes to me with 
fresh beauty and meaning; my heart goes out with 
venerating gratitude to that mild face, which I dare 
say is smiling on some one as beneficently as it did on 
me years and years ago." 

The lecture she refers to is one of inspiration de- 
livered in Boston, in 1841, before the Mechanics' 
Apprentices Library Association, on the benefits of 
manual labor. He said: "We must have an antagon- 
ism to the tough world for all the variety of our spirit- 
ual faculties or they will not be born. Manual labor 



172 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

1 
is the study of the Eternal World. The advantages 
of riches remains with him who procured them, not 
with the heir. The whole interest of history lies in the 
fortunes of the poor. Knowledge, Virtue, Power are 
the victories of Man over his necessities, his march 
to the dominion of the world. In general we may say 
that the husbandman is of the oldest and most uni- 
versal profession, and that where a man does not yet 
discover in himself any fitness for one work more than 
another, this is to be preferred." 

The doctrine of the farm Emerson says is this: that 
every man ought to stand in primary relation with 
the work of the world, and ought to do it himself and 
not suffer the accident of his having a purse in his 
pocket or his having been bred to some dishonorable 
or injurious craft, to sever him from those duties; and 
for this reason: that "Labor is God's education; that 
he only is a sincere learner, he only can become a Mas- 
ter, who learns the secrets of labor, and who, by real 
cunning, extracts from nature its sceptre." 

"Our age and history for these thousand years has 
not been the history of kindness but of selfishness. 
We complain that the policies of masses of the people 
are controlled by designing men and led in opposition 
to manifest justice and the common weal and to their 
own interest. But the people do not wish to be repre- 
sented or ruled by the ignorant and base. 

"They only vote for these, because they were asked 
with the voice and semblance of kindness. They will 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 173 

not vote for them long, they inevitably prefer wit and 
probity; to use an Egyptian metaphor, it is not their 
will for any long time to * raise the nails of wild beasts 
and to depress the heads of the sacred birds.' Let an 
affection flow out to our fellows; it would work in a 
day the greatest of revolutions. It is better to work 
on institutions by the sun than by the wind. 

" Love would put a new face on this weary old 
world in which we dwell as pagans and enemies too 
long, and it would warm the heart to see how fast the 
vain diplomacy of statesmen, the impotence of ar- 
mies and navies, and lines of defense would be sus- 
pended by this unarmed child. 

"With love he Joins prudence, a sublime prudence 
which is the very highest that we know of man, which, 
believing in a vast future, sure of more to come than 
is yet seen, postpones always the present hour to the 
whole life; postpones talent to genius and special re- 
sults to character." 

Between 1841 and 1869 Emerson delivered and 
published many lectures and poems. He rests on 
his intuitions. He ignores European traditions and 
methods and draws his habitual illustrations from 
American society and manners. His statements at 
times lack system, but, to adopt Ben Jonson's 
phrase, his words "are rammed with thought," and 
Mr. Higginson says that neither Greek precision nor 
Roman vigor could produce a phrase that Emerson 
could not match. 



174 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

The editor of the Boston Evening Transcript at one 
time published extracts from Emerson's writings and 
made comments that were critical and not flattering. 
Some time after he saw Emerson in the bookstore 
of Philips, Sampson and Company, and asked Mr. 
Philips to give him an introduction. Mr. Philips ap- 
proached Emerson with this request, to which he re- 
plied: "Mr. Epes Sargent of the Evening Transcript ? 
I have nothing for Mr. Sargent and Mr. Sargent has 
nothing for me." Nothing more was to be said, and 
Mr. Sargent was told that his desired introduction 
was declined. 

To Mr. Henry Ware he wrote regarding their differ- 
ence of opinion: "I shall read what you and other 
good men write, as I have always done; glad when 
you speak my thought, and skipping the page that 
has nothing for me." 

In a conversation which J. T. Trowbridge had with 
Emerson as to Amos Bronson Alcott he said: "Alcott 
is wise, but he cannot always command his wisdom. 
He has precious goods on his shelves, but he has no 
show-windows." 

Emerson's discourses were as a rule far above the 
comprehension of the common multitude. He was 
not renowned so much for being a good speaker as 
for being a good writer. He made no attempts to 
amuse, but on the contrary aimed to instruct his 
audiences. 

His thoughts and expressions are in marked con- 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 175 

trast to the speaker referred to by Lincoln, who could 
"compress the most words into the smallest ideas of 
any man he ever met." 

Emerson enjoyed wit at his own expense, and Dr. 
Edward W. Emerson, his son, said that he never 
failed to be completely overcome with laughter if any 
one recited the imitation of his poem, "Brahma," 
the first verse of which is : — 

"If the red slayer think he slays, 
Or if the slain think he is slain, 
They know not well the subtle ways 
I keep, and pass, and turn again." 

The parody reads: — 

"If the gray tom-cat thinks he sings, 
Or if the song think it be sung, 
He little knows who boot-jack flings, 
How many bricks at him I've flung." 

He was greatly interested in the prosperity of the 
United States. At a meeting between Carlyle and 
Emerson at Stonehenge, Carlyle challenged Emerson 
to define the American Idea. In reply Emerson un- 
folded his dream of the coming brotherhood of man, 
and said of America: "There in that great sloven con- 
tinent, in high Alleghany pastures, in the sea-wide, 
sky-skirted prairie, still sleeps and hides the great 
mother long since driven away from the trim hedge- 
rows and over-cultivated garden of England. Here 
is the home of man, here is the promise of a more 
excellent social state than history has recorded." _~ 



176 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

The tariff has been a great national question al- 
ways with us, and upon this subject he had a decided 
opinion, and notwithstanding the strings of facts 
that seem to prove the wisdom of tariffs, his faith was 
in the freedom of trade. "If the Creator has made 
oranges, coffee, and pineapples in Cuba and refused 
them to Massachusetts," he said, "I cannot see why 
we should put a fine on the Cubans for bringing them 
to us, a fine so heavy as to enable Massachusetts men 
to build costly palm-houses and glass conservatories 
under which to coax these poor plants to ripen under 
our hard skies and thus discourage the poor planter 
from sending them to gladden the many cottagers 
here. We punish the planters there and punish the 
consumer here for adding these benefits to life. Tax 
opiums, tax brandy, gin, wine, hasheesh, tobacco, and 
whatever articles of pure luxury, but not healthy and 
delicious food." 

In 1857 the Atlantic Monthly was started in Boston, 
and to it Emerson contributed several articles. It 
was about this time that the Saturday Club was 
formed, its members dining together on the last Sat- 
urday of every month at Parker's in Boston. Emer- 
son took great pleasure in these meetings, where he 
met Agassiz, Lowell, Holmes, Longfellow, Norton, 
Hawthorne, Judge Hoar, Governor Andrew, Senator 
Sumner, Elliot Cabot, John M. Forbes, and other 
friends. 

The Social Circle was another club with which he 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON 177 

was connected, which held its meetings in Concord; 
consisting of twenty-five of the citizens of different 
professions. The members met on Tuesday evenings 
for gossip and mutual conference in a small building 
called the School of Philosophy. 

When sixty-three years old, he read to his son Ed- 
ward the poem "Terminus," commencing — 

" It is time to be old, 
To take in sail," — 

and concluding, — 

"As the bird trims her to the gale 
I trim myself to the storm of time, 
I man the rudder, reef the sail, 
Obey the voice at eve, obeyed at prime: 
Lowly faithful, banish fear, 
Right onward drive unharmed; 
The port, well worth the cruise, is near, 
And every wave is charmed." 

In his latest days his voice failed him for lecturing, 
and still later and more entirely his memory of words. 
While at Longfellow's funeral, having taken a look at 
his friend, he spoke of him as "our dear friend, whose 
name at this moment I cannot recall." 

He contracted acute pneumonia during exposure 
to the inclement weather at the grave, and soon fol- 
lowed Longfellow to the other world. He died April 
27, 1882, one month before his eightieth birthday. 

The rough unpolished boulder marks his last rest- 
ing place in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery at Concord, 
with this inscription taken from one of his poems: — 



178 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

" The passive master lent his hand 
To the vast soul that o'er him planned." 

Emerson's life was quiet, simple, and unpretending. 
He was a zealous worker, an accomplished scholar, 
a lover of truth and beauty, and an admirer of Na- 
ture. His words and works are sources of wisdom, to 
which the scholars of this and coming generations will 
gladly turn for guidance, inspiration, and intellectual 
enjoyment. 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

1757-1804 

A noted orator, in speaking of prominent men who 
were conspicuous in the early history of America, re- 
marked that Washington in the present time to most 
people was only a steel engraving. Had he said any- 
thing of Hamilton he would probably, from his stand- 
point, have called him a faded daguerreotype. We 
live in an age of action. The hurry and intense excite- 
ment of the world about us so absorb our thoughts 
and attention that we find but little time to study 
the past history of our country. 

Each day brings something new; the living present 
crowds out thoughts of the past. We become so inter- 
ested in watching each day's discussions in Congress, 
the busy life in city, state, and nation, the enactment 
and the results attending the execution of many dif- 
ferent laws in their effect upon the diverse industries 
of our country, that the formation of our government, 
the deliberations and difficulties which confronted its 
founders, are forgotten. 

This seeming forgetfulness of past men and early 
history which the orator noted as so characteristic of 
Americans, is a strong reason why we should often 
turn back and carefully review past history, study- 
ing the characters and lives of the early statesmen of 



180 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

this republic to whom we owe such a debt of gratitude 
for leaving to us this noble heritage. While financial 
problems are being discussed in this country, it seems 
the proper time to speak of the public life of one of its 
earliest and greatest statesmen, who originated the 
sound financial policy which this government now 
possesses. 

Alexander Hamilton's career was not a lengthy one : 
forty-seven years measured the span of his life, which 
commenced in the West Indies in 1757, and ended in 
1804. Twenty of these years were spent in the public 
service. The circumstances of young Hamilton's life 
were such that with limited schooling he was com- 
pelled to enter a counting-house at Vera Cruz at 
twelve. At fourteen we find him entrusted with the 
entire charge of the business while his employer was 
absent on a visit to the United States. In early days 
he was studious as well as diligent. Pope, and Plu- 
tarch's Lives, were favorite books of his youth, and 
from the virtues of noble Roman characters he gained 
impulses that affected his subsequent career. Thor- 
oughness in study was a characteristic trait of his life 
and close attention to details was ever prominent in 
all matters brought to his consideration. Speaking 
in later years to an intimate friend of his methods of 
study, he said: "Men give me some credit for genius; 
all the genius I have lies just in this: when I have a 
subject in hand I study it profoundly. Day and night 
it is before me. I explore it in all its bearings, my 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON 181 

mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort 
which I make the people are pleased to call the fruit 
of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought." 

He early exhibited a high order of intelligence and 
mental acuteness, and in his boyhood, when a severe 
tornado swept over the islands, carrying ruin and de- 
struction in its course, the young clerk wrote such a 
vivid description of the huricane as to cause active 
inquiries to be made for the author. Kind friends vol- 
unteered assistance to aid him in securing the educa- 
tion he so much desired to obtain. He was sent to the 
United States. After preparing for college, he com- 
pleted the entire course in three years and graduated 
from Columbia College, meanwhile contributing 
many forcible arguments to the public press, in de- 
fense of the colonists in their resistance of the oppres- 
sive acts of Great Britain. He not only encouraged 
others to make resistance but zealously applied him- 
self to the study of military tactics and took an active 
part in different battles in the defense of his country. 
At the siege of Yorktown he led in the attack and 
capture of one of the British outworks. When the war 
closed, he turned his attention to the study of law, 
and with such diligence did he apply himself, that he 
was admitted to the bar after four months' study. 
Next we find him a member of the New York Legis- 
lature, then a delegate to the Continental Congress, 
where he remained one year and returned to the prac- 
tice of law in New York. 



182 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

It was a favorable time for Hamilton, as the legis- 
lature of New York had passed a law disqualifying 
from practice all attorneys who could not produce 
satisfactory certificates of attachment to Whig prin- 
ciples. This necessarily debarred from practice most 
of the old city lawyers, who were Tories. He distin- 
guished himself in an early case, in which a poor 
widow brought suit against a rich English merchant 
who had occupied her property under the authority 
of the British Commander, Sir Henry Clinton. By 
New York law she was entitled to rent for such occu- 
pancy. By the treaty of peace made by the colonies 
with Great Britain amnesty had been agreed upon for 
all acts done during the war by military orders. The 
question at once arose which should control, the acts 
of Congress or the acts of a state legislature. The 
unpopular side was taken by Hamilton, who success- 
fully claimed that the English merchant was not held 
to pay anything to the widow for the use of her pro- 
perty; the judge decided that "no state in this union 
can alter or abridge in a single point the federal arti- 
cles of the treaty." The populace were exasperated 
at the judge for his decision, which deprived the 
widow of her rent, and the enmity and bitter feeling 
towards Great Britain made the common people care 
more for the enforcement of their state law than the 
support of the public treaty. The state legislation 
was appealed to, and that body decreed that the 
court's decision was subversive of all law and order 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON 183 

and that thereafter only such men should be ap- 
pointed as judges who would administer the laws 
fearlessly, intelligently, and justly. This instance 
exhibits the jealousy early shown by the State lest its 
rights should be superseded by the Federation. 

The limits allowed will enable us to speak of but 
one other case in which Hamilton appeared, and the 
impressive argument he made in that case induced 
Chancellor Kent to affirm that it was "the greatest 
forensic effort Hamilton ever made." A prosecution 
for libel had been directed against Henry Croswell, 
a Federalist, editor of a small local journal, the libel- 
ous statement being to the effect that Jefferson had 
paid one Callender to slander Washington and Adams. 
Hamilton was unable to appear when the case was 
first brought to trial; Croswell's counsel asked for time 
to get witnesses from Virginia to testify as to the 
truth of the libel; but Judge Lewis held that the jury 
were judges only of the fact, and not of the truth 
or intent of the publication. Hamilton was subse- 
quently called into the case to argue the motion for a 
new trial on the ground of misdirection by the judge. 
The case was ably argued by Hamilton before the 
Supreme Court at Albany. The court-room was 
crowded and public interest was so great in the argu- 
ment that the legislature could not obtain a quorum. 
Hamilton's argument occupied six hours. The view 
maintained by Hamilton is that which at present is 
the law of this and other states, providing that in a 



184 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

prosecution for writing or publishing a libel the de- 
fendant may give in evidence in his defense upon 
the trial the truth of the matter contained in the 
publication charged as libelous, and such evidence 
shall be deemed a sufficient justification unless ma- 
licious intention is proved. 

His learned and skillful efforts in this and in other 
cases placed him in the first rank among lawyers, but 
it is rather as a statesman and financier that he has 
gained his greatest renown. The separation of the 
colonies from Great Britain found the American peo- 
ple with no settled plan of future government. The 
importance of right and decisive action was well set 
forth by Hamilton in one of the public appeals made 
through the press at this time under the name of 
"Phocion": — 

"Those who are at present intrusted with power in 
all these infant republics hold the most sacred deposit 
that ever was confided to human hands. It is with 
governments as with individuals; first impressions 
and early habits give a lasting bias to the temper and 
character. Our governments hitherto have no habits. 
How important to the happiness, not of America 
alone, but of mankind, that they should acquire good 
ones; if we set out with justice, moderation, liberal- 
ity, and a scrupulous regard to the Constitution, the 
government will acquire a spirit and tone product- 
ive of permanent blessings to the community." 

Opinions differed as to the best method of proceed- 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON 185 

ing in the organization of this government. One 
party favored the sovereignty of the states, the other 
advocated a union of the different states called the 
Federal Government, with powers to make the sev- 
eral states subservient to the union. For several 
years the thirteen states attempted to keep up sepa- 
rate and independent governments, under an agree- 
ment with each other which should give to their sub- 
jects the greatest amount of liberty without giving 
up to any central power control of the affairs of the 
states themselves. As a result, anarchy, disorder, and 
confusion followed. The delegates sent by each state 
to confer as to the best interests of all the states could 
confer and recommend, but had no power to enforce 
any decrees or to collect the necessary revenue for the 
maintenance of order or protection of their common 
interests. 

Hamilton had carefully studied the history of other 
nations, as his writings in the "Federalist," to which 
he contributed, show, sixty-three of the eighty-five 
articles having been contributed by him. He ascribed 
the fall of the Grecian republics and the decay of 
the Roman power to certain failures which he sought 
to remedy in the proposed government; and the first 
and greatest need he felt to be that of a central power 
which should not only decree but should control and 
enforce its decree against any and all the states, 
should any attempt resistance. The situation was 
sometimes portrayed as similar to that of an old man 



186 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

and his wife who with their thirteen sons had landed 
in this country and built a large house which shel- 
tered all under one roof; as the boys grew up they left 
the old home and built cabins for themselves; but 
troubles followed; one had his crops destroyed, an- 
other had his sheep stolen, another had his flocks 
swept off by a flood, while a tempest unroofed the 
house of the fourth, and as a result all found that their 
separate independence did not bring as good results 
as when they unitedly stood by the old home, and 
they asked to return to it again. Hamilton main- 
tained that only by yielding supreme control to a gov- 
ernment that was central and superior to the states 
themselves would the union of states be complete and 
lasting. 

Jefferson was the leading spirit of the opposition, 
who claimed that Hamilton's plans were disastrous 
to liberty; that the colonies had been struggling to es- 
cape from monarchial power, and that now there was 
danger lest they should only exchange their allegiance 
from the king of Great Britain to a power in America 
which might prove as oppressive as the power they 
had just overcome. He had no fears of popular out- 
breaks or resistance of a central power. To him 
Shays's insurrection in Massachusetts seemed a com- 
mendable occurrence; he said, "A little rebellion now 
and then is a good thing. An observation of this truth 
should render honest republican governors so mild in 
their punishment of rebellions as not to discourage 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON 187 

them too much; it is a medicine necessary for the 
sound health of the government." He also said that 
his "general plan would be to make the states one as 
to everything connected with foreign nations and sev- 
eral as to everything purely domestic." His strong 
maintenance of individual rights made him the leader 
of the Democratic-Republican party as it was then 
called, while Hamilton was the leader of the Federal 
party. Hamilton's arguments in support of a central 
government formed by the states, yielding to it the 
power of declaring war, collecting revenue, and draft- 
ing an army, prevailed, and after much debate, many 
conferences and long delays, the Constitution of the 
United States was adopted. 

The different articles of the Constitution had been 
carefully considered, the rights of the states and the 
needs of the individuals were studiously contem- 
plated, but only by concessions and compromise 
was the work finally accepted. Hamilton was re- 
nowned as an organizer, and Adams said of him: 
"Hamilton was the greatest organist that ever played 
upon a caucus." His course was conciliatory amid 
disputing factions. The system was not wholly in ac- 
cordance with his ideal, but he labored to secure the 
best government which the situation, habits, and 
opinions of the country would permit. In one of his 
papers read to the assembly of delegates at Philadel- 
phia, he recommended that the President and mem- 
bers of the Senate should hold their offices during 



188 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

good behavior. He was an admirer of the stability of 
the British government and sought to introduce its 
excellencies into the American Constitution. His re- 
commendations caused his enemies to accuse him 
unjustly of attempting to form a monarchy. This, 
however, was not his purpose, and was contrary to 
his written declaration on the subject. He feared the 
results of giving too much power into the hands of the 
common people, too often influenced by selfishness, 
corruption, and passion. The present condition of our 
great cities is a strong argument to prove that Ham- 
ilton's fears were not unfounded as to intrusting 
political power to people lacking in experience and 
intelligence. 

It was the conservative and steady policy of Ham- 
ilton that prevented the radical propositions of Jeffer- 
son from effecting disastrous results to the proposed 
union. The planetary system depends for its stabil- 
ity upon the ever-restraining power of gravitation 
exerted by a central sun. The individual planets, 
following without restraint the centrifugal force of 
their nature, would fly off into space to utter destruc- 
tion. But influenced as they are by a never-ceasing 
power which continually swerves and holds them in 
check, they glide on their unceasing courses without 
conflict or confusion. In like manner the diverse and 
opposing forces found in our system of government 
have under skillful arrangement been made to work 
in harmony together. Under Hamilton's aid and ad- 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON 189 

vice such checks and counter-checks have been estab- 
lished in the Constitution that, like a balance-wheel 
or central sun, our government has been preserved 
from sudden overthrowal and destruction by the con- 
flicts of a party or the passion of the populace. We 
live amid a continued conflict between ignorance and 
intelligence. Yet may it not be said in behalf of our 
present system, conferring so much power upon the 
democracy, that it brings greater personal responsi- 
bility and freedom to each individual? By restricting 
suffrage we might have better laws, but not a better 
people; the present system compels the state for self- 
preservation to educate and instruct all the people, 
to fit them for the duties of self-government. 

Hamilton expected that Washington's administra- 
tion would so conciliate and win the confidence of the 
people that the unity of the whole country would grow 
with its growth and strengthen with its strength. In 
this hope he was not mistaken. As soon as the people 
began to discuss plans for the formation of the govern- 
ment, two parties began to crystallize and gather 
congenial elements together. 

Washington in the formation of his cabinet in- 
cluded representatives of both sides. Hamilton, 
then thirty-two years of age, represented the Feder- 
alists, and was nominated as Secretary of the Treas- 
ury, while Jefferson, the Secretary of State, was 
known as a Democratic leader. General Knox, as Sec- 
retary of War, sided with Hamilton, and Randolph, 



190 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

the Attorney-General, followed Jefferson. The Cab- 
inet meetings were stormy, the discussions lengthy 
and vindictive, and as to their fervor we have Jeffer- 
son's statement that "Hamilton and myself were 
daily pitted in the Cabinet like two fighting cocks." 
Washington made no mistake in his choice of Ham- 
ilton as his principal adviser, and depended upon his 
counsel continually. Hamilton's first official act was 
to recommend the payment of the foreign and domes- 
tic war-debt; the assumption by the nation of a large 
portion of the war-debt incurred by the states, as it 
was incurred by them for the benefit of the nation. 
For an impoverished people to assume a debt of 
$75,000,000 seemed at that time almost impossible, 
and the proposal excited great hostility in Congress. 
It seemed difficult to raise money enough to meet even 
current expenses. But Hamilton's proposition was 
no idle scheme. He had thoroughly studied the re- 
sources which this country was able to furnish. He 
knew that upon assuming the debt provision must be 
made to meet its payment; and in rapid succession 
followed those great state papers advocating the levy- 
ing of duties on foreign wines, spirits, and coffee, and 
on domestic productions, — high taxes on luxuries and 
low duties on the necessities of life. In taxation Ham- 
ilton favored specific rather than ad valorem duties; 
he sought to exclude arbitrary valuations in taxation; 
his first purpose was to substitute a mode by which 
each individual might himself estimate the amount 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON 191 

of his taxes without being dependent upon the ca- 
prices of another, and to secure as far as possible cer- 
tainty and equality in taxation. Next he built up 
American commerce by tonnage-duties; later he re- 
commended the establishment of a national bank to 
aid in the collection of taxes and transmission of funds 
.from one part of the country to another. 

The Bank was established, and on October 25, 1791, 
Washington in his message congratulated the coun- 
try as follows : — 

"The rapid subscription to the United States Bank, 
which completed in a single day the sum allowed to 
be subscribed, is among the striking and pleasing evi- 
dences which present themselves not only of confi- 
dence in the government but of resources in the com- 
munity." 

Hamilton's plans and methods were continually 
subject to criticism, and the tongue of slander was 
not silent in making unjust and cruel charges against 
him. He was accused of speculating with the public 
funds, of taking advantage of his official position 
to help himself and his friends. Henry Lee (who de- 
livered the immortal funeral oration on the death of 
Washington), having at one time written to him re- 
garding the domestic debt, the probability of its in- 
creasing and of the interest accruing being paid in 
specie, received the following reply : — 

" My dear friend, I am sure you would not subject 
me to an impropriety nor do I know that there would 



192 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

be any in answering your inquiries; but you must 
remember the saying in regard to Csesar's wife. I 
think the spirit applicable to any man connected 
with the administration of the finances of the coun- 
try. With regard to such, mere suspicion is eagle- 
eyed and the most innocent things may be misappre- 
hended." 

He requested General Schuyler, his father-in-law, 
not to permit his son to speculate in public securities, 
lest it might be inferred that these speculations were 
made on information furnished by Hamilton. Not- 
withstanding his integrity and ability in his great 
office, his opponents doubted his honesty and heaped 
calumny upon him in a succeeding administration. 
When Jefferson was called to the Presidency, as he 
handed Albert Gallatin his commission, his bitterness 
toward Hamilton and his suspicion of him were ex- 
pressed in these words: "Your most important duty, 
Mr. Gallatin, will be to examine the accounts and all 
the records of your department, in order to discover 
the blunders and frauds of Hamilton and to ascertain 
what changes will be required in the system. This is 
a most important duty and will require all your in- 
dustry and acuteness. To do it thoroughly you may 
employ whatever extra service you may require.' ' 

Gallatin was in sympathy with Jefferson and under- 
took the task carefully, critically, and thoroughly; 
his honesty, however, would not lead him to misrep- 
resent a rival, and a careful inspection caused the 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON 193 

i 

critic to become an admirer of Hamilton's system. 
After closing his most thorough examination he said 
to President Jefferson: "Mr. President, I have, as you 
directed, made a thorough examination of the books 
and accounts and correspondence of my department 
from its commencement, and I have found the most 
perfect system ever formed. Any change under it 
would injure it. Hamilton made no blunders, com- 
mitted no frauds; he did nothing wrong." Noble and 
impressive words to utter under the circumstances to 
President Jefferson, who had no faith in Hamilton or 
his plans, and had pronounced his scheme for fund- 
ing the debt to be "involved in impenetrable fog." 

For six years Hamilton stayed in the Cabinet, and 
with unceasing labors brought forward different meas- 
ures to the attention of Congress and the country, 
necessary to maintain the government and credit of 
the United States. At one time our strained relations 
with Great Britain required the appointment of an 
ambassador to be sent to the Court of St. James. 
Washington preferred Hamilton, but his active par- 
ticipation in different political measures had aroused 
a great deal of enmity against him; so that Jay was 
chosen. The treaty which the latter brought back for 
the consideration of this government so influenced 
the people from all parts of the country that passion 
conquered reason and judgment, and the sentiment 
expressed in a toast given at a banquet of Frenchmen 
in this country at the time met with a hearty response : 



194 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

"The Republic of America: may she never mistake 
Jay-birds for eagles." A rude transparency was car- 
ried by night through the streets of Philadelphia, 
representing a life-size of Jay holding in his right hand 
a pair of balances with American liberty and inde- 
pendence in the higher scale and British gold in the 
lower, while with his left hand he offered a copy of 
his treaty to senators about him exclaiming: "Come 
up to my price and I will sell you my country ! " Ham- 
ilton, while attempting to address the crowd in New 
York City in support of the treaty, was stoned and 
struck in the forehead. With perfect coolness he said: 
" If you use such striking arguments I must retire." 
The mob would not hear him speak, but they could 
not stop the publication of his arguments, and under 
the name of "Camillus" he sent forth to influence 
the people those letters filled with convincing reasons 
to sustain the treaty and support the administration. 
We have had occasion to speak of the opposition 
which his plans caused. He rose to public notice and 
esteem by his noble patriotic utterances and by his 
voluminous writings in maintenance of a needed pub- 
lic constitution binding the states together in an in- 
dissoluble bond. In the early part of his career, under 
the name of "Phocion," he wrote such forcible arti- 
cles in supporting the position for the need of a cen- 
tral government restraining individuals and state 
rights that an association of men formed themselves 
into a club in which the proposition was made that 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON 195 

each member should stand ready to challenge Ham- 
ilton to a duel. If the first member fell, all would chal- 
lenge him in turn, until they all perished or Hamilton 
should be killed. Isaac Ledgard, who had written as 
"Mentor" and had attempted to answer Hamilton, 
opposed the plan, saying, "This, gentlemen, cannot 
be. What! you write what you please, and because 
you cannot refute what he writes in reply, you form 
a combination to take his life!" 

Not all, however, were ruled by such wise counsel 
as this. A dangerous rival crossed his path when he 
met Aaron Burr. He was opposed by Hamilton 
when in 1800 Jefferson was chosen President and 
he Vice-President, and when in 1804 he sought the 
office of governor of the state of New York, Hamil- 
ton used his influence to prevent his election. Burr 
ascribed his defeat to Hamilton and sought to rid 
himself of such a powerful opponent by challenging 
him to a duel because he had used terms reflecting 
severely upon his conduct. Hamilton utterly con- 
demned the practice of dueling. It was in his char- 
acter as a public man that he accepted the challenge. 
He said to Dr. Mason: "I have found for some time 
past that my life must be exposed to that man. I 
went to the field determined not to take his life." 
He had written the following words on a paper found 
after his death: " The ability to be in future useful, 
whether in resisting mischief or effecting good in 
these crises of our public affairs which seem likely 



196 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

to happen, would probably be inseparable from a 
conformity with prejudice in this particular." If he 
declined, public disgrace was threatened; he feared 
he should become a notorious figure in history, "for 
scorn to point his slow unmoving finger at." A refusal 
would bring him into sovereign contempt. His son 
Philip had only a short time before fallen in a duel 
fought in vindication of his father's honor, his an- 
tagonist having branded his father as a monarchist, 
attempting to found a monarchy in this country; 
and should the father waver and fail to vindicate his 
own honor when challenged by his political rival? 

Hamilton was conscientiously opposed to dueling, 
but felt that his honor and reputation were at stake 
and therefore accepted the challenge, made his will, 
and prepared to die. We need not dwell upon the 
conflict. The villain lived, the hero fell. Sad indeed 
was the scene at his home during his last hours, when 
his weeping wife and children gathered about the bed 
of the dying statesman, but they were not the only 
mourners. The whole nation lamented his loss. "His 
virtues plead like angels trumpet-tongued against the 
deep damnation of his taking off." His faults were 
forgotten while his patriotism shone with brighter 
lustre as he passed away. On the day of his funeral 
church-bells rung in muffled tones morning and even- 
ing. Business was suspended, and crowds paid their 
homage to his memory. 

Aaron Burr found but little indorsement of his 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON 197 

murderous deed. New York was no place for him, 
and unnoticed he took his boat and silently stole 
away from the sight of his angry countrymen, to be 
heard from later as a traitor and conspirator plotting 
treason against the nation. Hamilton and Burr had 
been rivals for many years; by different ways they 
attained eminent positions in state and nation — 
Hamilton by a straightforward and honorable man- 
ner, Burr by flattery, trickery, and fraud; the latter 
gained eminence but by methods which cannot stand 
the light of criticism, while Hamilton's hold upon 
the nation's heart was won by diligent, honest, and 
conscientious efforts which have left his fame un- 
tarnished. He died with intellect undimmed, with 
strength undiminished, at the age of forty-seven. 
Monuments have risen to his memory, but the great- 
est memorials left to us are the Constitution which 
Hamilton labored so hard to secure and the finan- 
cial system which he originated and firmly estab- 
lished in this Republic. What better commendation 
than the words of Webster: "He touched the dead 
corpse of the public credit and it sprang upon its 
feet. The fabled birth of Minerva from the brain of 
Jove was hardly more sudden or more perfect than 
the financial system of the United States as it burst 
forth from the conceptions of Alexander Hamilton." 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 

1850-1894 

Among the writers of fiction whose popularity has 
steadily increased with knowledge of their lives and 
works is Robert Louis Stevenson, who was born in 
Edinburgh, November 13, 1850. He was the son of 
Thomas Stevenson. From his mother, the daughter 
of Rev. Lewis Balfour, D. D., he inherited a weakness 
of the chest and a susceptibility to cold which affected 
the whole course of his life. When a little over two 
years of age he had a severe attack of croup, and 
from that time until he was eleven, there was no year 
in which he was not many days in bed from illness. 
He writes; "Many winters I never crossed the thresh- 
old, but used to lie on my face on the nursery floor 
chalking or painting in water-colors the pictures in 
the illustrated newspapers, or sit up in bed with a 
little shawl pinned about my shoulders. I remember 
the pleasant maternal caution in regard to my play- 
things on Sunday. A pack was sewed upon one of the 
wooden figures, and I was made to promise to play at 
nothing but Pilgrim's Progress." 

He kept up his drawing and painting until he was 
seventeen, never drawing a picture of anything real 
before him, but always from fancy. He had for a 
nurse a very conscientious person named Alison Cun- 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 199 

ningham, to whom he dedicated his "Child's Garden 
of Verses." She called cards "the devil's books." 
Robert remembers praying fervently with her that 
the participation which his father and mother en- 
joyed in games of whist might not be visited upon 
them to their perdition. 

His nurse had also a strong dislike for novels and 
plays, but was unable to create any dislike for them 
in the mind of the young Robert. One critic thinks 
that his familiarity with the slaughter of cardboard 
crews and painted paper pirates in his youth had 
something to do with the apparent enthusiasm with 
which he portrayed the criminal and sanguinary con- 
flicts in his books. 

Most children take delight in stories of wild beasts, 
pirates, wild Indians, and giants. Their effect upon 
Stevenson was doubtless an aid in the development 
of the imagination and invention which mark his sto- 
ries of adventure. 

His father, a civil engineer, hoped that Robert 
would choose that profession. For three and one half 
years he spent the winter and sometimes the summer 
sessions at the University of Edinburgh, working for 
a degree in the scientific department and for a quali- 
fication as engineer. During the summer season he 
often played truant, and at the classes of the professor 
he was, according to his own account, conspicuous for 
his absence. The story is told that when he applied 
to a certain professor for a certificate of attendance, 



200 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

the professor declared that he had never set eyes on 
him before; this Stevenson had to admit was highly 
probable, but so ingeniously and winningly did he 
plead his case that he did not leave without the re- 
quisite signature. 

To him nature and life outside the university were 
more interesting than the professor's instruction. 

In "Random Memories" he describes Anstruther 
as a place sacred to the muse; he went there as a 
young man to gain engineering experience from the 
building of a breakwater. 

"What I gleaned," he says, "I do not know, but 
indeed I had already my own private determination 
to be an author. I loved the art of words and the ap- 
pearances of life, though I haunted the breakwater 
by day and even loved the place for the sake of the 
sunshine, the thrilling seaside air, the wash of the 
waves on the seashore, the green glimmer of the div- 
er's helmet from below, and the musical clinking of 
the masons; yet my only industry was in the hours 
when I was not on duty." 

He carried about with him a note-book in which he 
wrote down favorite passages from the authors whose 
style he admired. 

Invalid and weakling as he was physically, he owes 
his success to perseverance and hard work, or, as he 
puts it himself, to "elbow-grease." 

In his father's department of work he was awarded 
a silver medal by the Scottish Society of Arts in 1871 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 201 

for suggested improvements in lighthouses. His uni- 
versity career had two periods: in the first he was 
heading toward engineering; in the second, with his 
father's consent, he took up the study of law, and in 
1875 was admitted to the bar, but had little success, 
securing only one case, which brought him a fee of 
four guineas. 

The chief desires of his heart were, first, good 
health, second, a small competence, and third, friends. 
He was particularly blessed in the last desire and was 
readily welcomed as a witty and charming gentleman, 
a master spirit and man of genius. 

He had a fondness for the sea. In August, 1874, he 
went yachting for a month with Sir Water Simpson 
and a friend on the west coast of Scotland. He lived 
a hard, open-air fife and throve upon it. His return 
was characteristically described. "I left my pipes on 
board the yacht, my umbrella in the dog-cart, and 
my portmanteau by the way." He reached home 
without his luggage, in a hat borrowed from one of 
his friends and a coat belonging to another. With Sir 
Walter Simpson he took a canoe-trip in Belgium and 
France which resulted in the publication of his first 
book, "An Inland Voyage." At the same time he 
began two serial publications, "The New Arabian 
Nights" and "Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh." 

He had a distinctive style, and his writings give 
one a sense of his frankness and intimacy. There is 
a personality which attracts the reader. He does not 



202 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

write as if talking at a distance to the reader from 
platform or pulpit, but we seem rather to be seated 
beside him listening to his ripple of talk. 

In 1879 he took passage in the steerage of a trans- 
Atlantic steamer for New York. He talked with many 
workmen among the steerage passengers, but says 
they rarely seemed to him to be either willing or care- 
ful thinkers. Culture, he says, is not measured by the 
greatness of the field which is covered by our know- 
ledge, but by the nicety with which we can perceive 
relations in that field, great or small. The workmen 
on this steamer he found wanting in this quality or 
habit of mind. They did not perceive relations, but 
leaped to a so-called cause, and thought the problem 
settled. Thus the cause of everything in England was 
the form of government, and the cure for all evils was 
by consequence a revolution. The true reasoning of 
their souls was this: "I have not got on. I ought to 
have got on. If there was a revolution I should get 
on." — How? They had no idea. Why? — "Be- 
cause, because, — well, look at America." 

The difference between England and America was 
put to him by a fellow passenger. " In America," said 
he, "you get pies and puddings." The bare terms of 
existence are not the principal thought in the work- 
ingman's mind, but delicacies, adornments, and acci- 
dental attributes of life, such as pudding to eat and 
pleasant books and theatres to occupy his leisure. 

From New York he made a journey to California 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 203 

in an emigrant train. His sea-voyage and long journey 
across the continent to California severely tried his 
health, and to recuperate he camped out in the moun- 
tains beyond Monterey. Here he was taken seriously 
ill. Fortunately he found two frontiersmen in charge 
of a goat ranch, who took him under their care and 
rescued him from death. He had left his native land 
against the wishes of his people, was poor, lonely, ill, 
and discouraged, while at Monterey; yet he did not 
lose heart. He wrote to a friend January 20, " I lead 
a pretty happy life though you might not think it. I 
have great fun trying to be economical, which I find 
as good a game of play as any other. I have no want 
of occupation, and though I rarely see any one to 
speak to, have little time to worry." 

But though his spirit was indomitable, his physi- 
cal powers were exhausted. His landlady's child was 
very ill and he sat up all night attending it. The child 
recovered, but Stevenson, a short time afterwards, 
broke down and could not go on. It was a very anx- 
ious time for his friends, and he was nearer the "grey 
ferry," as it seemed, than he had been since child- 
hood. 

In San Francisco, on May 19, 1880, he was married 

to Fanny Van de Grift, who had obtained a divorce 

from her former husband, Mr. Osborne. She was a 

character almost as strong, interesting, and romantic 

| as Stevenson himself. She became a stanch compan- 

\ ion of all his adventures, and a stimulating critic of his 



204 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

work, and she aided him greatly. Since his death she 
has written the preface of many of his books, particu- 
larly describing the circumstances under which they 
were written. 

In August, 1880, he sailed with his family for Scot- 
land, but found himself unable to endure the Scottish 
winter, so he tried the climate of the Alps and in Jan- 
uary gives this description of himself: "I dawdle on 
the balcony, read and write, and have fits of con- 
science and indigestion. The ingenuous human mind, 
face to face with something it ought to do, does some- 
thing else." Of his work he wrote to his mother: "I 
work away and get nothing or but little done. It is 
slow, but I sit from four to five hours at it. I have 
written something like 35,000 words since I have been 
here, which shows at least I have been industrious." 

Later he went to the north of France and settled 
at St. Marcel; next to Hyeres and settled down in a 
cottage of his own, "with a garden like a fairy story," 
he says, and "a view like a classical landscape." Here 
for nine months he found happiness. In the beginning 
of May he received one hundred pounds for "Treas- 
ure Island," his most famous book of adventure. It is 
like " Robinson Crusoe," written for boys with a boy 
for its hero. The care he took while writing is shown 
in "Prince Otto," 1 one chapter of which was written 
seven times and the eighth time he let it stand. 

On a pleasure trip that he made to Nice he con- 
1 Written in 1885. For this work lie received £250. 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 205 

tracted a severe cold which developed into congestion 
of the lungs. He recovered from this only to be at- 
tacked later by a violent and dangerous hemorrhage; 
unable to speak, he made signs to his wife for a paper 
and pencil and wrote with a firm hand, "Don't be 
frightened; if this is death it is an easy one." His re- 
covery was slow and he was obliged to keep absolute 
silence. His right arm was in a sling on account of the' 
hemorrhage; his wife used to amuse him at times by 
making up tales, some of which he afterwards used in' 
the "Dynamiter'' and in the "Child's Garden of: 
Verses," writing down new verses for himself with his 
left hand. At this time he wrote his other poems, in- 
cluding the requiem which ten years later was to mark 
his grave on the lonely hill-top at Samoa. He lived 
and worked with death continually in mind. In 1884 
Mrs. Stevenson wrote to her mother-in-law: "The 
doctor says, keep him alive till he is forty and then, 
though a winged bird, he may live till ninety ; but be- 
tween now and forty, he must live as though he were 
walking on eggs." 

When he was thirty-eight years old, in a book of 
verses written by W. E. Henley, we find his person- 
ality aptly described : — 

R. L. S. 

"Thin-legged, thin-chested, slight unspeakably, 
Neat-footed and weak-fingered : in his face — 
Lean, large-boned, curved of beak, and touched with race, 
Bold-lipped, rich tinted, mutable as the sea. 



206 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

The brown eyes radiant with vivacity — 
There shines a brilliant and romantic grace, 
A spirit intent and rare, with trace on trace 
Of passion, impudence and energy. 
Valiant in velvet, light in ragged luck, 
Most vain, most generous, sternly critical, 
Buffoon and poet, lover and sensualist; 
A deal of Ariel, just a streak of Puck, 
Much Antony, of Hamlet most of all. 
And something of the Shorter-Catechist." 

He made a second visit to the United States, but 
without much benefit, and on June 26, 1887, or 1888, 
the whole family, including his stepdaughter, Mrs. 
Strong, her husband and child, sailed from San Fran- 
cisco on board the steam yacht Casco, under Captain 
Otis, for the South Sea Islands. In 1890, he bought 
the property near Apia in the Samoan Islands to 
which he gave the name of Vailima. He built a rough 
house, and later a better one, which with additions 
and improvements grew to quite a mansion, where 
he kept open house like a feudal lord, and was sur- 
rounded by numerous native retainers. 

The native Samoans were people after his own 
heart. In his own establishment he was king and 
patriarch, and ruled with mild but inexorable justice 
as a judge in a court of final jurisdiction. 

While Stevenson's friend Mataaf a, one of the claim- 
ants of the throne in Upolii, was imprisoned by the 
European powers with the chiefs who had sided with 
him, Stevenson cheered their captivity with numerous 
presents of tobacco and other comforts such as they 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 207 

prized. On their release they came to thank him and 
declared that they must commemorate his kindness 
by some lasting work; so they decided to make a fine 
wide road to his house through the bush, a work in- 
volving great labor, a task not loved by any Samoan 
and despised as unworthy of a chief. Despite all this, 
it was duly finished and opened with a great feast, 
under the name of "the road of the loving heart." 
As long as he remained in Samoa he had fortunately 
marvelous health; but even a visit to Sydney would 
bring on a relapse. He worked hard, rising early and 
working till midday. To this period belongs "The 
Master of Ballantrae," which, although gloomy and 
repellent as a story, is one of his greatest books for 
picturesque and narrative power, truth and subtlety 
of handling. At this time he also wrote "The 
Wrecker," "St. Ives," and "Weir of Hermiston." 
Both were left unfinished; the latter was his last 
work. He considered it one of his best, and he dedi- 
cated it to his wife. I quote part of the dedication: — 

"Take thou the writing, thine it is, for who 
Burnished the sword, blew on the drowsy coal, 
Held still the target higher, chary of praise, 
And prodigal of counsel — who but thou? 
So now, in the end, if this the least be good. 
If any deed be done, if any fire 
Burn in the imperfect page, the praise is thine." 

I have given at some length the private history of 
Stevenson, believing that the trials and discourage- 
ments under which he labored would make us more 



208 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

/ interested in the man and the books which he has 
I written. He labored under many difficulties and much 
severe physical disability, so much so that I marvel 
at his success in his literary undertakings. He had not 
\ the facility of Scott, to dash off with ease the different 
pages of his books; but it was by slow and careful 
work that he accomplished his task. His stories have 
no superfluous wanderings or disconnected remarks, 
as if the writer sought to increase the number of his 
pages rather than the interest of his readers. 

Stevenson's style is noticeable and peculiar; it cre- 
ates an interest in the writer, and his personality im- 
presses one. He writes his story as if he were telling 
it to a party of friends, with the added attraction 

i which such personality gives it. He relates incidents 
with vividness, realism, close connection, and extreme 
interest. The reader, having commenced one of his 
stories or histories, does not desire to lay down the 
book with the close of the chapter, but wishes to con- 
tinue to the end. He had this admirable standard in 
mind, which I think all writers and speakers could 
follow with advantage. 

In his own words, the only test of writing that he 
knew was this : " If there is anywhere a thing said in 
two sentences that could have been as clearly and 
engagingly and as forcibly said in one, then it is ama- 
teur work "; and the main thing in which he thought 
his own stories failed was this: "I am always cutting 
the flesh off their bones." His stories were not "pad- 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 209 

ded," like those of many novelists, causing the' 
reader hastily to skip over paragraphs and pages to 
reach the end. 

I have spoken of the ill-favored conditions under 
which his stories were written. In a letter written to 
Mr. George Meredith, one year before his death, he 
says, "For fourteen years I have not had a day's real 
health; I have wakened sick and gone to bed weary, 
and I have done my work unflinchingly. I have writ- 
ten in bed and written out of it, written in hemor- 
rhages, written in sickness, written torn by coughing, 
written when my head swam for weakness; and for 
so long it seems to me I have won my wage and re- 
covered my glove. I am better now and have been, 
rightly speaking, since I first came to the Pacific, and 
still, few are the days when I am not in some physical 
distress. And the battle goes on; ill or well is a trifle, 
so as it goes. I was made for a contest and the powers 
have so willed that my battlefield should be the dingy, 
inglorious one of the bed and the physic bottle. ,, 

He concludes his essay "Aes Triplex'' with words 
of courage for those who are cast down by weakness, 
writing that it is better to lose health like a spend- 
thrift than to waste it like a miser, and adding, " When 
the Greeks made their fine saying that 'those whom' 
the Gods love die young,' I cannot help believing that 
they had this sort of death also in their eye. For 
surely at whatever age it overtakes the man, this is to 
die young. Death has not been suffered to take so 



210 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

much as an illusion from his heart. In the hot-fit of 
life, a tip-toe on the highest point of being, he passes 
at a bound on to the other side. The noise of the mal- 
let and chisel is scarcely quenched, the trumpets are 
hardly done blowing, when, trailing with him clouds 
of glory, this happy-starred, full-blooded spirit shoots 
into the spirit-land. ,, 

Stevenson took great pains with all of his work. 
To Mr. lies he wrote in 1887: "I imagine nobody had 
ever such pains to learn a trade as I had, but I slugged 
at it day in and day out : and I frankly believe (thanks 
to my industry) I have done more with smaller gifts 
than almost any man of letters of the world." 

In 1876, he reckoned that his final copy involved 
ten times the actual quantity of writing. In 1888 the 
articles for Scribner's Magazine were written seven 
or eight times; for these he received the remuneration 
of eight thousand a year. 

Stevenson was a man interested in his kind; he was 
charitably inclined, and on one occasion he wrote: "I 
think the crier up has a good trade; but I like less and 
less every year the berth of runner down; and I hate 

to see my friends in it. What is 's fault? That 

he runs down. What is the easiest thing to do? To 
run down. What is it that a strong man should scorn 
to do? To run down." 

He not only had a deep sympathy for any person 
in suffering, but disliked to see any person acting with 
cruelty towards animals. On one occasion he saw a 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 211 

dog being ill-treated. He at once interfered, and when 
the owner resented his interference, saying, "It's not 
your dog," he cried out, " It 's God's dog and I 'm here 
to protect it." 

In the writings of Stevenson we have our attention 
called to out-door life and to the beauties of nature as 
seen in mountains and seashore. He has stimulated 
our imagination and led us to give more attention to 
the world about us, and the beauty of Nature as 
"God keeps an open house." 

Dr. Dawson's testimonial to Stevenson deserves 
our attention. Stevenson "has spoken to the poet 
that exists in every man. He has hung the common 
room of life with inimitable tapestries, woven on the 
looms of God. He has brought to tired men in cities a 
new vision of the wonder of the earth. . . . For of all 
boons that men can bring to man none is greater than 
to give vision to his eyes and make him feel the grand- 
eur of that elemental life of which he is a part." 

He wrote a number of books while living in Samoa, 
frequently doing it in bed, though at the last he dic- 
tated while walking rapidly up and down the room. 
Here he wrote "The Dynamiter" and "The Wrong 
Box," in collaboration with Lloyd Osborne, as well 
as "The Wreckers" and "The Ebb Tide." 

His first story of any note, "Will o' the Mill," was 
written in France. His first book was "An Inland 
Voyage," which attracted little attention, though it is 
a charming narrative of travel. " Treasure Island," 



212 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

his first novel, was written, he tells us, in two periods 
of about fifteen days each. Many call it his best 
work. "Kidnapped," which he at the time thought 
his best, was written at Bournemouth in about five 
months. R. H. Stoddard says of this story: "The 
fight in the round-house is as unforgettable as any of 
the fierce combats in the Iliad." "The Pavilion of the 
Links" he wrote at Monterey, California. 

With the stories of Stevenson, though they may 
"harrow up the soul and freeze the young blood" by 
the narration of crimes committed, there comes also 
the fear of a future punishment and coming retribu- 
tion. Is there a better illustration of this than in one 
of the chapters of "The Ebb Tide"? Three men are 
planning the murder of Attwater, and he knows it. 
Seated on his verandah after dinner he suddenly 
strikes a bell and asks them to observe its effect. "The 
note rose clear and strong, it rang out clear and far 
into the night, and over the deserted islands. It died 
into the distance until there lingered in the porches 
of the ear a vibration that was sound no longer. 
'Empty houses, empty sea, solitary beaches,' said 
Attwater; 'and yet God hears the bell and yet we sit 
on this verandah on a lighted stage with all heaven 
for spectators.' The captain sat mesmerized. At 
length, bursting with a sigh from the spell that bound 
him, he stammers out : ' So you mean to tell me now 
that you sit here evenings and ring up — well, ring up 
the angels by yourself? ' — 'As a matter of historic 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 213 

fact one does not/ replied Attwater. 'Why ring a bell 
when there flows out from one's self and everything 
about one a far more momentous silence? The least 
beat of my heart, and the least thought in my mind 
echoing into eternity, forever and forever, and for- 
ever ?"' 

In the story of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," we are 
forcibly reminded of the duality in our nature, of the 
continual warfare between body and spirit ; and as 
an allegory of that strife that story will be read and 
studied. "The man was literally torn between the 
good and evil natures. In his right mind given to 
serious and religious thoughts; in the guise of Mr. 
Hyde, guilty of abominable vices, repenting and sin- 
ning in turn; to the last desiring good but unable to 
achieve it; and the appalling moment comes when 
Mr. Hyde can no more be transferred back to Dr. 
Jekyll." 

Stevenson died in his forty-fifth year, December 4, 
1894. Not a long life, we may say, in point of time, 
but a great one we think in the work he so nobly ac- 
complished. He has made the world better by having 
lived in it. He has left a rich legacy to posterity in the 
numerous books of romance, poetry, stories, and criti- 
cism which have found a place in our libraries. He 
wrote to amuse, to instruct, and to help mankind. 
His loss was keenly felt by his devoted Samoan friends 
as well as by his family. One of the old Mataafa 
chiefs crouched beside the body of his departed friend, 



214 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

whom he called "Tusitala," which means "The 
Teller of Tales." "When Mataafa was taken," he 
exclaimed, "who was our support but Tusitala? We 
were in prison and he cared for us; we were sick and 
he made us well; we were hungry and he fed us; the 
day was no longer than his kindness." 

With great labor they constructed a pathway up 
the steep mountain, to the summit which Stevenson 
had designated as his last resting-place. A bronze 
plate on one side of the stone, in the Samoan language, 
commemorates his love for the Samoans. It reads, 
"The tomb of Tusitala," followed by the speech of 
Ruth to Naomi taken from the Samoan Bible : — 

"Whither thou goest, I will go: and where thou 
lodgest, I will lodge, thy people shall be my people, 
and thy God my God; where thou diest, will I die and 
there will I be buried." 

On the other side are inscribed in bronze the verses 
which he himself had written to mark his tomb. 

"Under the wide and starry sky 
Dig the grave and let me lie, 
Glad did I live and gladly die, 
And I laid me down with a will. 

" This is the verse you grave for me, 
Here he lies where he longed to be, 
Home is the sailor, home from the sea, 
And the hunter home from the hill." 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

Nov. 10, 1728-April 4, 1774 

Early recollections of the descriptions and charac- 
ters found in "The Deserted Village" induced the 
writer to select Oliver Goldsmith as the subject of the 
present paper. 

His life was one of varied conditions and pursuits, 
and was marked with many mistakes and failures, but 
the excellence of his writings and the praise which has 
been given to them for elegance of style and beauti- 
ful description will, I believe, warrant a careful con- 
sideration of his life and labors. 

He was born at Pallas, Ireland, November 10, 1728. 
His father, the Reverend Charles Goldsmith, was a 
Protestant clergyman depending for his support upon 
a small pastorate, together with the products of some 
fields which he farmed in connection with his pastoral 
duties; and, content with his station, "was passing 
rich with forty pounds a year." Oliver seems to have 
inherited many of the characteristics of the Gold- 
smith family, "whose hearts were said to be in the 
right place but whose heads seemed to be doing any- 
thing but what they ought." 

His father, however, was a man of excellent charac- 
ter, of generous heart, poor but honest; and, esteem- 



216 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

ing learning better than wealth, he desired that his 
son should receive a good education. At six years of 
age Oliver was placed under the tutorship of an old 
soldier, Thomas Byrne, a good-natured man with 
some literary taste, who delighted his pupils with a 
display of his knowledge of foreign lands and his past 
experience. At eleven he was sent to a school of re- 
pute at Athlone, about five miles from his father's 
house, kept by one Reverend Mr. Campbell, where 
he remained two years. Then he spent three years at 
Edgeworthstown under the tutorship of the Reverend 
Patrick Huges. 

During his school days he was not renowned for 
scholarship, and I fail to find any record of high rank 
attained during this period. His cultivation of ath- 
letics was carefully attended to, he being always 
ready for sport; and whenever a trick was to be 
played or a game was proposed, Oliver was always on 
hand. At seventeen he entered Trinity College in 
Dublin as a "sizar," or poor scholar, and was com- 
pelled to do the servant's offices of sweeping the 
courts in the morning, carrying up dishes from the 
fellows' dining-table in the afternoon, and waiting in 
the hall till the fellows had dined. In scholarship he 
took such low rank, especially in mathematics, as to 
anger his college tutor, and at one time it looked as if 
he would graduate in advance of his class without 
securing his degree. 

He did, however, succeed at one time in gaining 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 217 

some college honor which secured him a prize of 
thirty shillings. This so delighted him that he cele- 
brated the occasion by having a small dancing party 
in his rooms. Suddenly, in the midst of the sport, in 
walked the college tutor and suddenly stopped the 
sport by knocking Goldsmith down. By this Gold- 
smith felt so disgraced that the next day he sold his 
books and started for Cork, with a view of going to 
America. His brother Henry, hearing of this sudden 
departure, went hastily after him and induced him to 
return to college, where he remained two years more 
and finally graduated with his class in February, 
1749, being twenty-one years of age. 

His father having died two years previously, his 
college expenses were borne principally by his uncle, 
Reverend Thomas Contarine. The latter and Oliver's 
brother Henry both being pastors, it was not unex- 
pected that Oliver's family friends should advise him 
to follow his father's calling, as a humble village 
preacher. Accordingly it was proposed that during 
the next two years he should prepare himself to be 
commissioned as a preacher. For the clerical profes- 
sion he had no liking, and the two years were spent 
in miscellaneous ways ; some reading and a great 
deal of idleness; probably Bishop Elphin, to whom 
he made application for orders, wisely thought he 
would not make a successful preacher and refused 
the appointment. His uncle then found him a place 
as tutor in the family of a Mr. Flinn. Here he stayed 



218 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

one year, when his term suddenly ended, for in a 
game of cards which was played in the family, Gold- 
smith accused one of them of unfair play and a speedy 
separation followed. 

Disappointed again, he started for Cork with a 
purpose to sail for America, his ticket was purchased, 
and the vessel was soon to sail, the captain delaying 
the start until the wind was favorable. Meanwhile 
Goldsmith took a short excursion into the country; 
the wind suddenly sprang up in his absence, and the 
captain sailed away without him. 

Law was the next profession to which his inclina- 
tion turned. His uncle advanced him fifty pounds 
with which to seek entrance to the Inns of Court in 
Dublin, and thither he went. Here the attractions 
of gaming and the hope of raising his fifty pounds to 
two hundred, reduced his pile to fifty pence. Dis- 
appointed, and with shame, he wrote to his uncle 
and returned home. 

What course they should advise him next to pursue 
greatly puzzled his friends. For a time he remained, 
like Wilkins Micawber, "waiting for something to 
turn up." He had made failures in attempting to 
enter two of the professions, but on the suggestion of 
a friend that he would make a good doctor, it was de- 
termined to start him toward that profession; so in 
1752, three years after his graduation at college, we 
find him starting for Edinburgh. On reaching that 
city he hired a room, deposited his baggage, and went 






OLIVER GOLDSMITH 219 

out to look round. Returning late, he found that he 
had forgotten the name and address of his landlady; 
fortunately he came across the porter who had taken 
his baggage on his arrival, and who soon released him 
from his dilemma. He spent two years here in the 
study of medicine, then desired to finish his medical 
studies on the Continent and applied to his uncle for 
further funds, with which he started for Leyden to 
attend the lectures of Albinus, the great professor, 
there. For some unexplained reason he determined 
to go farther. He borrowed a little money from a fel- 
low student, as he was too shamefaced to make fur- 
ther appeals to his friends, and set out to make the 
tour of Europe on foot, with but one spare shirt, a 
flute, and a guinea! 

His method of proceeding is described in " The 
Vicar of Wakefield" in the account given by the 
Philosophic Vagabond: "I had some knowledge of 
music, with a tolerable voice; I now turned what was 
once my amusement into a present means of subsist- 
ence. I passed among the harmless peasants of Flan- 
ders, and among such of the French as were poor 
enough to be very merry, for I ever found them 
sprightly in proportion to their wants. Whenever I 
approached a peasant's house towards nightfall I 
played one of my merriest tunes, and that procured 
me not only a lodging but subsistence for the next 
day; but in truth I must own, whenever I attempted 
to entertain persons of a higher rank, they always 



220 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

thought my performance odious and never made me 
any return for my endeavors to please them." 

On February 1, 1756, he returned penniless to Do- 
ver. During his absence his uncle, who had given 
him so much assistance, had died. He could not find 
in London the peasants he had found in France, by 
whose aid he could earn his living by playing his flute; 
but he took up in turn different pursuits with which 
to earn a livelihood, and at one time was a strolling 
player, then obtained a position as a druggist's clerk, 
was for a time an usher in a school, then hired a garret 
in a miserable court on the bank of Fleet Ditch as it 
was called, from which he climbed by a dizzy ladder 
of flagstones called Break-Neck Steps to his room in 
the garret, containing a bed and but one chair, so that 
when a visitor came he gave up his chair and sat on 
the window-sill. 

In this garret he attempted to do some literary 
work, and wrote some literary articles which were 
accepted by the press and gave him a small return. 
His ability as a writer secured him a place with a book- 
seller by the name of Griffiths in April, 1757, for one 
year as a contributor to the "Monthly Review." This 
engagement was terminated at the end of five months, 
as his employer accused him of idleness and neglect 
of his duties. Until the time that he spent with 
Griffiths it never entered his head that literature was 
his natural vocation. 

De Quincey carefully notes in writing of Gold- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 2$1 

smith a progress upward in the development of litera- 
ture. In Goldsmith's time the public were not as well 
developed intellectually as at present. Public libra- 
ries, newspapers, and periodical literature have given 
a stimulus since then. There were two classes of peo- 
ple who understood literature in the eighteenth cen- 
tury : first, the aristocracy, and second, the commer- 
cial class. The artisans then were below the gentry. 
Expanding politics, partisanship, and journalism 
called at first an inferior class of laborers into the field. 
Literature became a trade. The popular writer then 
must speak in a way to attract the lower class and 
speak to that which is least permanent in human sen- 
sibilities. The moralist, to be popular, must be self- 
degrading to the lowest order of minds. 

All motives of Goldsmith's nature moved in the 
direction of the true, the natural, the sweet and 
gentle. He did not condescend to Fielding's "Tom 
Jones" or scenes of Smollett. Formerly the author 
was an object of ridicule because there was no connec- 
tion between literature and money-making. Poverty 
was the badge of all his tribe. A nobility was then 
possible only in the ratio of the grandeur and magni- 
ficence developed for social results. Now all the fine 
arts popularly called such have risen in esteem. The 
public has been slowly trained to fix its attention 
upon the intellect which is presupposed in the arts 
rather than upon the offices of pleasure to which they 
minister. 



m EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

An aristocratic man will now.ask an artist into his 
society when formerly he would have transferred him 
to the house steward's table. It was fortunate for 
Goldsmith that, amid his poverty and many hin- 
drances to progress, he possessed such a constitu- 
tional gayety of heart; as he himself said, he had " a 
knack of hoping." 

His miscellaneous writings were the "Inquiry into 
the present state of Polite Learning in Europe"; later 
he was a contributor to a literary work called "The 
Bee" and wrote the world-famous "Letters, from a 
Citizen of the World. " At one period of his struggle 
for recognition as a writer he received and acted upon 
the suggestion made that it would secure him more 
recognition and standing if he should also take up in 
connection with his literary work that of a physician, 
to which he had previously given some attention. 
Accordingly Goldsmith purchased a full-dressed pro- 
fessional wig, a sword, and a gold-headed cane. It was 
apparently with some reluctance that he left his old 
haunts, giving up his ale-house club at Islington and 
his nights at St. Giles's. "In truth," said he, "one has 
to make vast sacrifices for good company's sake. Here 
am I, shut out of several places where I used to play 
the fool very agreeably." 

The changed condition did not, professionally 
speaking, seem to be very prosperous or successful; 
his practice, being chiefly among his friends, was not 
sufficient for his maintenance. The only instance re- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 223 

membered of his practice was the case of a Mrs. Side- 
botham, whom he attended, and who consulted with 
the apothecary as to the expediency of taking the 
quantity of medicine called for in the prescription di- 
rected by Dr. Goldsmith. She sided with the apothe- 
cary instead of the doctor. This so annoyed Dr. Gold- 
smith that he quitted the house in disgust, saying that 
he would leave off prescribing for his friends. "Do 
so, my dear doctor," observed Beauclerc; "whenever 
you undertake to kill, let it be only your enemies." 
Thus terminated his career in the last of the three 
professions — Theology, Law, and Physic — to which 
he had at different times given his attention. 

In the minute record kept by Boswell of his first 
evening with Johnson at the Mitre Tavern, we find 
Johnson saying : "Dr. Goldsmith is one of the first 
men we now have as an author, and he is a very 
worthy man too. He has been loose in his principles 
but is coming out right." 

His different literary works, however, at length 
brought his name before the public and secured his 
recognition by Dr. Johnson, through whose recom- 
mendation he was introduced into the Literary Club, 
where he met Sir Joshua Reynolds, Bennet Langton, 
Topham Beauclerc, Edmund Burke, and others. The 
club at first consisted of nine members, and was later 
increased to twelve. The members met at the Turk's 
Head Tavern every Monday night at seven o'clock, 
and took supper together. Dr. Johnson was its most 



224 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

prominent and influential member, called by Smollett 
the "Great Cham of Literature." 

Boswell writes that Goldsmith was very jealous of 
the extraordinary attention that was paid to Dr. 
Johnson, and was much mortified on one occasion 
when he was talking to the members, to be interrupted 
by a German who sat next to him, who, seeing that 
Johnson was acting as if about to speak, suddenly 
stopped Goldsmith, saying : " Stay, stay, Toctor 
Shonson is going to say something." 

"And are you sure, Sir," replied Goldsmith 
sharply, "that you can comprehend what he says?" 

The acquaintance formed by Goldsmith with the 
different members of the club secured him the friend- 
ship and assistance which he needed in aid of his 
literary pursuits, which he had now taken up in 
earnest. 

His publication of "The Traveller" increased his 
popularity among the members of the club, and of 
this work Johnson remarked to Boswell: "There has 
not been so fine a poem since Pope's time." It was 
dedicated to his brother, the Reverend Henry Gold- 
smith. It appeared in 1764, and summarizes Gold- 
smith's experiences as a traveler in the different 
countries he had passed through, and comments upon 
their beauty of scenery, the people and the govern- 
ment, but concludes that our happiness depends far 
less upon political institutions than upon the temper 
and regulation of our minds. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 225 

"How small, of all that human hearts endure, 
That part, which laws or kings can cause or cure! 
Still to ourselves in every place consign'd 
Our own felicity we make or find." 

His comedy, "The Good-natured Man," was per- 
formed in Co vent Garden in 1768, and by it he 
managed to clear about five hundred pounds. This 
enabled him to move to more luxurious apartments, 
where he entertained constant parties of friends, to 
the great annoyance of Blackstone, who was dili- 
gently preparing his Commentaries in the rooms be- 
neath. He wrote also the "History of the Earth 
and Animated Nature," the "History of Rome," 
"History of England," "History of Greece," "Life 
of Richard Nash," and various essays. 

There has been no author probably who has put 
more of his personal history into his works than did 
Goldsmith. The characters of his novel were not cre- 
ations of his imagination but were real personalities, 
and under fictitious names he described people whom 
he had met in life. 

One morning Dr. Johnson received a message from 
Goldsmith requesting him to come as soon as possible 
to his room. Johnson went and found that Goldsmith 
had been arrested by his landlady for rent due. Upon 
his asking Goldsmith as to what literary papers he 
had by him which might be sold to raise the money, 
"The Vicar of Wakefield" was presented. This was 
taken by Dr. Johnson and sold to a bookseller near 



226 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

by for sixty pounds, which enabled Goldsmith to pay 
his rent and left him some pounds to spare. In this 
excellent novel the Vicar is supposed closely to re- 
semble his father, while the philosophical vagabond 
is thought by many to be Goldsmith himself. The 
prodigality of spending, the sympathy for the poor 
and afflicted, and the great love for humanity, were 
qualities of which he was himself conscious and proud 
and which he took delight in portraying in this fa- 
vorite novel. It was written at a time when there 
was but little attention paid to reform of the crimi- 
nal. In this story we notice that great attention 
was given to the good vicar's plans for work in 
the jail, to his faithful and persevering attempts to 
make the occupants better, by sound advice and in- 
terest taken in their spiritual welfare. 

In this novel Goldsmith has given in a pleasing 
manner a personal history of the Primrose family, the 
temporal concerns of which were chiefly committed 
to Mrs. Primrose's management, while the spiritual 
were taken entirely under the direction of the good 
Dr. Primrose. Both parents and children were often 
deceived by persons with whom they had dealings. 
They were simple and unschooled in the ways of the 
world, as harmless as doves but not as wise as ser- 
pents, and were unable to cope with the sharpers and 
scoundrels whom they met. The family history ex- 
hibits a series of blunders, mistakes, temptations, and 
trials, the nature of which Goldsmith's early experi- 
ence had qualified him to describe. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 227 

"Others' follies teach us not, nor much their wisdom teaches, 
The most of sterling worth, is what our own experience preaches." 

Goldsmith had only to draw upon his past history 
for the experience given in this novel, which has a 
strong resemblance to the many blunders, mistakes, 
and disappointments of his own life. The novel closes 
with returning happiness and prosperity to the good 
Vicar and family, and its moral is that Good is tri- 
umphant over Evil. 

In the comedy "She Stoops to Conquer," published 
in 1773, the chief diversion arises from a stratagem 
by which a lover is made to mistake his future father- 
in-law's house for an inn. Such a mistake actually oc- 
curred in Goldsmith's life, when on one occasion he 
was on his way home from college, lost his way, and 
when he inquired the way to an inn, was directed by 
a joker to an elegant private mansion, where he gave 
his orders as if in an inn, inviting the owner and his 
family to sup with him; nor did he discover the mis- 
take he had made until he left the following morning, 
the proprietor entering into the plan to carry out the 
deception into which his guest had been led. The 
comedy is often presented on the stage at the pre- 
sent day, to delighted audiences. 

Johnson's opinion of the comedy was this: "I 
know of no comedy for many years that has so much 
exhilarated an audience; that has answered so much 
the great end of comedy, making an audience merry." 

In May, 1770, "The Deserted Village" was pub- 



228 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

lished. Five editions were exhausted in three months; 
since then over one hundred have been published. Of 
all his writings I think this is most read and admired. 
It is a poem describing the scenes of his boyhood and 
home life, and the different characters of his father's 
family and vicarage. It is dedicated to his friend Sir 
Joshua Reynolds. The village preacher is thought to 
represent the father or brother of Oliver. 

"A man he was to all the country dear; 
And passing rich with forty pounds a year. 
Remote from towns he ran his godly race, 
Nor e'er had changed, nor wish'd to change, his place; 
Unpracticed he to fawn, or seek for power, 
By doctrines fashion'd to the varying hour. 
Far other aims his heart had learn'd to prize — 
More bent to raise the wretched than to rise. 



"Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, 
And even his failings lean'd to virtue's side — 
But in his duty, prompt at every call, 
He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt, for all; 
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries 
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies, 
He tried each art, reprov'd each dull delay. 
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way. — 

'At church, with meek and unaffected grace, 
His looks adorn'd the venerable place: 
Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway, 
And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray. 
The service pass'd, around the pious man, 
With ready zeal, each honest rustic ran; 
Even children followed, with endearing wile, 
And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile; 
His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed; 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 229 

Their welfare pleas'd him, and their cares distress'd. 
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, 
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven; 
As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form, 
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm. 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head." 

Among the last writings of Goldsmith the satire 
called " Retaliation" is found. On one occasion, as 
he was late in joining the members of a club who 
dined occasionally at the St. James Coffee-house, the 
members humorously greeted him on his entrance as 
the "late Dr. Goldsmith," and some epitaphs were 
proposed. Garrick's was the most cutting : — 

" Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll, 
Who wrote like an angel but talked like poor Poll." 

To appease Goldsmith's wrath it was agreed among 
the members that Goldsmith should have his turn at 
them in reply. Of Garrick he wrote: — 

" Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can, 
An abridgement of all that was pleasant in man. 

On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting, 
'T was only that when he was off, he was acting." 

Of Burke he wrote : — 

" Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such, 
We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much. 
Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind 

■ And to party gave up what was meant for mankind. 

Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining 
And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining." 



230 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

Goldsmith's life was not a long one; he died at the 
age of forty-five. Thirty years of taking in, fifteen 
years of giving out, is a brief summary of his life. 
His virtues are finely characterized by Welsh, whose 
statement I now use: "As a novelist he wrote the first 
pure example of simple domestic fiction. He had buf- 
fetted the trials and temptations of the world, and 
they had widened his sympathies; he had seen suffer- 
ing and bled for it; want, and relieved it; iniquity, and 
deplored it; gladness, and loved it, sadness, and 
cheered it; because tenderness and sunshine were in 
him. Thus it is, by this fact of intimate contact with 
human nature and experience, that he held in his 
hand the moving strings of humanity and drew from 
them immortal harmonies. 

"Other writings have had higher power — his have 
that universal expression which never rises above the 
comprehension of the humblest, yet is ever on the 
level with the understanding of the loftiest : that f a- 
miliar sweetness of household imagery which wins 
them welcome alike in the palace of the rich and the 
cottage of the poor, to solace and improve and glad- 
den all. He wrote from the heart, seemingly uncon- 
scious of his fairy gifts and the excellence of his crea- 
tions. 'Mr. Goldsmith,' said Paoli, 'is like the sea 
which casts forth pearls and many other beautiful 
things without perceiving it.'" 

Sir Joshua Reynolds, the renowned artist, was one 
of his closest friends, and by him he was often enter- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 231 

tained at his home. Here he met the two sisters, the 
Misses Catherine and Mary Horneck, Catherine the 
eldest being called "Little Comedy," while Mary had 
the loving nickname of the "Jessamy Bride." The 
latter exerted a strange fascination over Goldsmith, 
and in the pleasant society of both sisters he passed 
many happy hours in the latter part of his life. 

Goldsmith was never married, but the great affec- 
tion Miss Mary had for him was shown at the time of his 
funeral. Before the lid of the coffin had been screwed 
down, a lock of hair was requested by her, and to sat- 
isfy this late request the coffin was opened and a lock 
of hair cut off which she treasured to her dying day. 

His remains were committed to their final resting- 
place in the burial ground of the Temple Church. 

Not long after his death the Literary Club raised 
by subscription a fund to erect a monument to Gold- 
smith's memory in Westminster Abbey. Dr. Johnson 
prepared a Latin epitaph. To this the members of the 
Club objected, desiring that it should be in English, 
"the language to which his works were likely to be so 
lasting an ornament." Such, however, was their awe 
of Dr. Johnson, that they decided to address a formal 
petition to him, signed by all, suggesting that English 
seemed more suitable than Latin. As no one desired 
to incur Dr. Johnson's displeasure by heading such a 
petition, they all signed their names in a circle around 
the request, making what mutinous sailors call a 
"round robin." 



232 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

The appeal made to Dr. Johnson did not move him 
to consent to change the Latin inscription. When he 
read the names he said: "I wonder that Joe Wharton, 
a scholar by profession, should be such a fool. I 
should have thought too that 'Mund Burke would 
have had more sense." He said that he was willing to 
modify the sense of the epitaph in any manner the 
gentlemen pleased, but he never would consent to dis- 
grace the walls of Westminster Abbey with an Eng- 
lish inscription. The Latin inscription was accord- 
ingly placed upon the marble tablet in Westminster 
Abbey, where it now remains in the Poets' Corner. 
It may be translated as follows : — 

OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH 

A POET, NATURALIST, AND HISTORIAN 

WHO LEFT SCARCELY ANY STYLE OF WRITING UNTOUCHED 

AND TOUCHED NOTHING THAT HE DID NOT ADORN 

OF ALL THE PASSIONS 

WHETHER SMILES WERE TO BE MOVED OR TEARS 

A POWERFUL YET GENTLE MASTER 

IN GENIUS, SUBLIME, VIVID, VERSATILE 

IN STYLE, ELEVATED, CLEAR, ELEGANT 

THE LOVE OF COMPANIONS 

THE FIDELITY OF FRIENDS 

AND THE VENERATION OF READERS 

HAVE BY THIS MONUMENT HONORED THE MEMORY 

HE WAS BORN IN IRELAND 

AT A PLACE CALLED PALLAS 

IN THE PARISH OF FORNEY AND THE COUNTY OF LONGFORD 

ON THE 10TH NOVEMBER, 1728 

EDUCATED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN 

AND DIED IN LONDON 

4TH APRIL, 1774 



ADDISON'S SIR ROGER DE 
COVERLEY PAPERS 

At midnight in June, 1719, a funeral procession 
might have been seen passing through the aisles of 
Westminster Abbey until it reached the Poets' Cor- 
ner, where the remains of Joseph Addison were then 
tenderly committed to the place prepared, to rest 
with the many other noted meD whom the English 
nation has delighted to honor. Addison's life had 
not been a long one, terminating in the beginning of 
his forty-eighth year. He was born at Milston, May 
1, 1672, thirteen years before the death of Charles II. 
His father was the Reverend Lancelot Addison. 

When fifteen years of age Joseph Addison entered 
Queen's College, Oxford, and the following year be- 
came Fellow of Magdalen College. He received later 
a pension from the government. He traveled on the 
continent to qualify himself for diplomatic service, 
and in 1703 returned to England. 

His literary work commenced in 1705, when he pub- 
lished remarks on poets of Italy, where he had trav- 
eled. He was appointed Under-Secretary of State in 
1706, and was elected a member of Parliament in 
1708. His fame, however, rests not upon labors in 
school, or college, or in government affairs, but upon 
his literary ability as a writer and contributor to the 



234 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

English newspapers, the " Tatler " and " Spectator," 
and it is chiefly in reference to his efforts upon the 
latter that this essay is written. He was a friend 
of Richard Steele, who published the " Tatler," so 
called, the publisher stated, in honor of the fair sex; 
and to this publication Addison sent many valuable 
contributions from Ireland. 

"Isaac Bickerstaff " was the name of the person 
who figured chiefly as sending in many contributions 
to the " Tatler," which was first published in April 
12, 1709; and as this paper inaugurated the methods 
afterwards copied by the "Spectator," published 
one year later, it may be interesting to know of the 
origin of the name of "Isaac Bickerstaff." 

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, pro- 
phetic almanacs were quite popular in England, pub- 
lished under the title of "Prognostications." The 
most famous prophet of the times was a fellow, a 
shoemaker by trade, called John Partridge, who 
styled himself " Student of Astrology." He pretended 
in his almanacs to foretell coming events by consult- 
ing the stars. His foolish predictions led Jonathan 
Swift, the famed author of "Gulliver's Travels," to 
satirize in a ludicrous way the methods used by John 
Partridge. He published, under the name of "Isaac 
Bickerstaff," certain predictions of events that were 
to take place in 1708 affecting the future of nations 
and individuals, written, as he claimed, to prevent 
the people of England from being further imposed 



SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY 235 

upon by any vulgar almanac-makers, like John Part- 
ridge. He claimed that the latter had been abusing 
the confidence of the English people. "Illiterate 
traders," he said, "between us and the stars im- 
port a yearly stock of nonsense, lies, folly and im- 
pertinence which they offer to the world as genuine 
from the planets, though they descend from no 
greater a height than their own brains." 

This imposition " Bickers taff " proposed to remedy, 
and as a proof of his infallibility, he proceeded to 
prophesy some marvelous events about to take 
place in the future, announcing, among other things, 
that in reference to John Partridge the almanac- 
maker he had consulted the star of his nativity, and 
discovered that he would infallibly die upon March 
29, 1708, of a raging fever, about 11 o'clock p. m; 
This audacious announcement was soon followed 
by a communication censuring Isaac Bickerstaff for 
writing such rash prophecies, and asserting that his 
false predictions would soon be unmasked. 

On March 30, 1708, appeared another of Isaac 
Bickerstaff's papers, entitled, "The Accomplishment 
of the Fruit of Mr. Bickerstaff's Predictions, being an 
account of the death of Mr. Partridge, the almanac- 
maker, upon the 29th instant," in which it was stated 
that Mr. Partridge died at about five minutes after 
seven, " by which it is clear that Mr. Bickerstaff was 
mistaken almost four hours in his calculations." Part- 
ridge, however, was not dead or sleeping, but was 



236 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

made extremely angry; and as the wits of the time 
aided in spreading the report of his death, his wrath 
was increased. He kicked the newsboy in front of his 
own door who was selling Swift's obituary pamphlet 
and crying it about the streets, and vowed vengeance 
upon his tormentors. Soon after, another pamphlet 
appeared, purporting to have been written by John 
Partridge himself, but in reality written by the witty 
Congreve and the Reverend Dr. Golden. In this 
communication, Partridge is made to complain bit- 
terly of the joke which had been practiced upon 
him, and he calls Isaac Bickerstaff "an unscientific 
Frenchman and Papist who is striving to bury alive 
a respectable Protestant astrologer." 

He then goes on to state that, when the night of his 
predicted death by a raging fever had come, his wife 
had prevailed on him to take a sweat and retire early. 
Suddenly a neighboring bell began to toll. The ser- 
vant raised the window, to inquire the cause, and she 
was told that Doctor Partridge had suddenly died. 
The maid told the man he lied, but he insisted it was 
true, that it was common report on the streets, and 
"that some one had told the sexton so, and the sexton 
tolled the bell." Soon an undertaker appeared at 
Doctor Partridge's residence to take measurements 
for hanging draperies. Later, the sexton came to see 
about the grave, the funeral sermon, etc. Partridge 
stoutly insisted he was not dead, but all who came 
claimed that he was mistaken, as the whole town 



SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY 237 

knew otherwise. In short, Congreve and Golden made 
Partridge say that with undertakers, embalmers, 
joiners, sextons, and elegy-hawkers upon a "late 
practitioner in physic and astrology," " I got not one 
wink of sleep that night, nor scarce a moment's rest 
ever since. ... I could not stir out of doors for the 
space of three months after this, but presently one 
comes up to me in the street : * Mr. Partridge, that 
coffin you was last buried in I have not yet been paid 
for.' My poor wife is almost distracted with being 
called 'Widow Partridge* when she knows it is false, 
and once a term she is cited into the Court to take out 
letters of administration." 

"The most memorable consequence of Swift's 
frolic," writes Sir Walter Scott, "was the establish- 
ment of the ' Tatler,' the first of that long series of 
periodical works which from the days of Addison to 
those of Mackenzie have enriched our literature with 
so many effusions of genius, humor, wit and learning." 
The success of this method of writing was so popular 
and the name of Isaac Bickerstaff so prominent, that 
early in the following year Richard Steele commenced 
the issue of a tri- weekly literary periodical, and the 
name of Isaac Bickerstaff appeared as its chief con- 
tributor. 

The purpose of the " Tatler," Steele announced in 
his dedication, was "to expose the false arts of life, to 
pull off the disguises of cunning, vanity and affecta- 
tion and to recommend a general simplicity in our 



238 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

dress, our discourse and our behavior." Its chief end 
was to unmask shams and to expose fallacies. In one 
of his papers he refers to the reported decease of John 
Partridge, the almanac-maker, and writes that he 
will, as he sees occasion, "proceed to confute other 
dead men who pretend to be in being, although they 
are actually deceased; he gives all men warning to 
mend their manners; for," he says, "I shall from time 
to time print bills of mortality, and I beg the pardon 
of all such who shall be named therein if they who are 
good for nothing shall find themselves in the number 
of the deceased." 

Of the 271 numbers of the "Tatler," Steele wrote 
164, Steele and Addison jointly 36, and Addison 42. 

On January 2, 1711, the " Tatler " came to a sud- 
den close, only to be followed two months later by the 
" Spectator," which commenced March 1, 1711, and 
555 numbers followed; of these Addison furnished 
274, Steele 236, Budgett, Tickell, Pope, Hughes, and 
one or two others wrote the remaining 45. 

It was published daily, until December 6, 1712. It 
was revived by Addison January 18, 1714, and pub- 
lished three times a week until December 20, but in 
this last issue Steele had little to do and Sir Roger 
and the Club do not appear. 

I have gone into this lengthy introduction as to the 
origin of the "Spectator," in order to show how Addi- 
son was initiated into writing those famous papers 
which have made his name immortal. Those which 



SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY 239 

have particularly made him distinguished are the Sir 
Roger de Coverley papers. Addison by these at- 
tempted to show to the world in a humorous way 
the free-and-easy life of a country baronet, together 
with the eccentricities of his companions, whom he 
grouped together as members of a club. The name of 
Roger de Coverley had its origin in the name of a 
knight of the time of Richard I, who invented a tune 
used at the country-dances called Roger de Coverley, 
and by Swift this name was suggested as a proper one 
for the knight of the Spectator Club. Next comes the 
law student who is a member of the Inner Temple, 
one of the four societies of London which have the 
sole right of calling persons to the English bar. We 
find also Sir Andrew Freeport, the Free-Trader and 
British Merchant, who calls the sea the British com- 
mon, Captain Sentry, the courageous member, Will 
Honeycomb, the fop and stylish gentleman, and the 
clergyman who treats divine topics with much author- 
ity "as one who has no interests in this world, as one 
who is hastening to the object of all his wishes and 
conscious hopes from his decays and mfirmities." 

All these are in turn brought out for consideration. 
The characters are not often seen together in the Club, 
but the Spectator, by conversations which take place 
in the different essays, humorously portrays their sev- 
eral characters and at the same time interweaves 
with their discourse various thoughts upon the dress, 
social habits, and customs of the times. He is a silent 



240 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

observer of the faults, the daily walks and talks of so- 
ciety people. Men and women at home, abroad, in 
church, at the play, in the law court, and on the street, 
afford attractive subjects for his observations. His 
early training in a minister's family had given his edu- 
cation an elevating and noble inclination, and he dis- 
liked very much to see men and women devoting their 
lives to those pursuits and enjoyments which perish 
with the using and give the possessor no lasting bene- 
fit. 

I During the reign of Charles II there was no ele- 
vated society or literature. Court life had been of a 
frivolous nature. Morals had been lowered. The 
Puritans, whose ideas in Cromwell's time were highly 
religious and ascetic, had given way to men whose 
ideas were of an opposite character. Society was 
changing from one extreme to the other. It was Addi- 
son's belief that innocent amusement was needed, 
but that it did not necessarily mean, because one 
was inclined to pleasure and amusement, that such 
inclination was at variance with religion and moral- 
ity. He sought to correct false impressions and im- 
prove the morals of the time, by showing up the ludi- 
crous side of different imaginary characters, and to 
hold as it were the mirror up to nature and to lead 
men to see themselves as others see them. If he was 
at any time cruel, it was to be kind. No one of the 
Club liked to have his individual faults held up before 
the SpectatorVsearch-light, but each one thought the 



SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY 241 

censure he made upon the other fellows was perfectly 
proper. All agreed that a general and wholesale at- 
tack made upon vice in general was excellent, but that 
present company should always be excepted, and that 
the Spectator should not attempt any sharp-shooting 
at any member of the Club or their companions. J 

The easy country gentleman was admirably por- 
trayed in Sir Roger de Coverley. A man of lively na- 
ture, thoughtful of others, beloved among his servants 
and fellow townsmen, interested in having them all 
attend church, and standing up to see while there 
that their behavior was correct; in that memorable 
place, the court, he was a man of dignity and desired 
to have his claim recognized by all, taking his seat by 
the justices in the court-room and delighting to re- 
ceive the applause of men, who, when Sir Roger was 
up, kept silence. In Will Wimble we find the char- 
acteristics of his name, the meaning of a wimble being 
that which bores a hole like a gimlet, and if a greater 
bore can be found than a character like Will Wimble, 
I think the Spectator's shot miscarried. His tedious 
and protracted explanation of how he caught a fish, 
reminds the writer of Dr. Johnson's rebuke of the man 
who was so prolix in describing the discomfiture of 
counsel upon the circuit at Shrewsbury who could n't 
sleep on account of the presence of fleas; Doctor John- 
son heard his prolonged talk some seven or eight min- 
utes, sitting meanwhile in impatience until the gentle- 
man had finished his tedious narrative, and then burst 



242 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

out : " It is a pity, sir, that you have not seen a lion, 
for a flea had taken you such a time that a Hon must 
have served you a twelvemonth." 

The summary of Will Wimble's character is aptly 
given by the Spectator, as he could not but consider 
with a great deal of concern how so good a heart and 
such busy hands were wholly employed in trifles; that 
so much humanity should be so little beneficial to 
others, and so much industry so little advantageous 
to himself. In Will Wimble's exchange of tulip-roots 
we are reminded of the tulip mania of former days, 
when tulip blossoms were so much cultivated in Hol- 
land that a great trade sprang up and speculation in 
tulip blossoms and tulip bulbs caused as much excite- 
ment for superiority in culture as the competition for 
the prize in a Holyoke Rose Show. 1 

Sir Roger had a noble ancestry to boast of and 
traced his lineage down by describing it in the an- 
cestral picture-gallery, including the "three sisters," 
— the first very beautiful who died a maid, the second 
still handsomer, had the same fate against her will; 
while the third, a homely one who got all the pro- 
perty, was stolen by a neighbor, a man of stratagem 
and resolution, who poisoned three mastiffs to come 
at her, and knocked down two deer-stealers in carry- 

1 One bulb alone at one time brought 13,000 florins, nearly 
$6500. Three bulbs brought 30,000 florins, nearly $10,000. Culti- 
vated in Holland, 1634-37. The trade caused great speculation, 
resulting at last in great failures to the speculators. 



SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY 243 

ing her off. He ends the list with the description of 
his immediate ancestor, Sir Humphry de Coverley, 
the brave man who narrowly escaped being killed in 
the civil wars. " For," said he, " he was sent out of the 
field upon a private message the day before the battle 
of Worcester." Sir Roger's interest in the church is 
aptly described and a conclusion is drawn favorable 
to his parish compared with the neighboring one, 
where the parson is always preaching at the squire, 
and the squire, to be revenged on the parson, never 
comes to church, and has not said two prayers in 
public or private for half a year, for which, says the 
Spectator, " the parson threatens if he does not mend 
his manners to pray for him in the face of the whole 
congregation." 

Sir Roger's description of the widow is very touch- 
ing; he evidently sought her hand, as he repeatedly 
exclaims in his praises of her, "She has certainly the 
finest hand of any woman in the world." She was a 
being in the eyes of Sir Roger "as inimitable to all 
women as she was inaccessible to all men." There is 
that dignity in her aspect, that composure in her mo- 
tion, that complacency in her manner, that if her 
form makes you hope, her merit makes you fear. Sir 
Roger was evidently "love-cracked," for, when he 
goes to Spring Garden his thoughts are on the widow; 
and as he walks under the trees and listens to the song 
of the nightingales singing above him he exclaims, 
"Ah, Mr. Spectator, the many wonderful nights that 



244 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

I have walked by myself and thought on the widow 
by the music of the nightingales ! " His reverie is 
rudely interrupted by a masked damsel who asks him 
if he will drink a bottle of mead with her. Sir Roger 
is disgusted with such rude familiarity, and as he 
leaves the garden he tells the mistress of the house 
who sits at the bar, that "he should be a better cus- 
tomer to her garden if there were more nightingales 
and fewer masks." That the widow was often in his 
thoughts is shown in Edward Biscuit's letter, report- 
ing the sad news of Sir Roger's death, in which he 
speaks of his last days and says, "we were once in 
great hope of his recovery, upon a kind message that 
was sent him from the widow lady whom he had made 
love to the last forty years of his life; but this only 
proved a lightning before death." 

The description of the books in the library of Sir 
Roger's client gives us an insight into the lack of 
literary culture of that age. The odd arrangement 
of china ware, counterfeit books carved in wood, 
quartos and octavos separated by tea-dishes, all ar- 
ranged in such a manner that the Spectator did n't 
know at first "whether he should fancy himself in a 
grotto or in a library." Yet he expresses himself won- 
derfully pleased with such a mixed kind of furniture 
as seemed very suitable both to the lady and the 
scholar; a satire resembling somewhat that of a college 
president, who was called upon by a graceless fellow 



SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY 245 

for a recommendation. It was cheerfully given by the 
President in these words : " Mr. is about to grad- 
uate with equal credit to himself and honor to the in- 
stitution." 

Addison was particularly fond of the classic au- 
thors, but the reader of the list of books in Leonora's 
Library will notice that all the classics were in wood, 
while "Locke on the Human Understanding" was 
used to keep safely the paper of "patches," which 
were bits of black silk used in those days to stick on 
the faces of fashionable ladies, as foils to heighten the 
whiteness of their complexions. Addison deprecated 
the illiterate condition of the family in his day. In 
one of the issues of the "Guardian," he says "it is a 
great pity that there should be no knowledge in a fam- 
ily. For my own part I am concerned when I go into 
a great house where perhaps there is not a single per- 
son that can spell unless it be by chance the butler or 
one of the footmen. What a figure is the young heir 
who is a dunce both by father's and mother's side! " 

Sir Roger's enthusiasm for out-door exercise is seen 
in the account of his day's hunting. He begins the 
chapter by stating that those who have searched into 
human nature observe that nothing so much shows 
the nobleness of the soul as that its felicity consists in 
action. Employment is needed by every one to secure 
a contented and happy life. He refers to the criminal 
confined seven years in the Bastile, who amused him- 
self by scattering pins about his chamber and gather- 



246 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

ing them up again and placing them in different fig- 
ures on the arm of a great chair, and who said that 
without this employment he would be in danger of 
losing his senses. 

To the Spectator's sound common sense as here 
given there is added also a tenderness of heart shown 
in the hunting scene as, at the close of an exciting 
chase, he rescues the exhausted hare from the pursu- 
ing hounds, and bears it away to a safe retreat where 
he has placed other captives similarly rescued from 
death. Sir Roger depends upon out-door sports and 
active exercise for health, and concludes the chapter 
with a prescription of Dry den, which I hope may not 
displease the doctor or injure his practice if I quote it 
here. 

"The first physicians by debauch were made; 
Excess began and sloth sustains the trade, 
By chase our long-lived fathers earned their food; 
Toil strung the nerves, and purified the blood; 
But we their sons, a pampered race of men, 
Are dwindled down to three-score years and ten. 
Better to hunt in fields for health unbought 
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught. 
The wise for cure on exercise depend; 
God never made his work for man to mend." 

In these essays the Spectator has given us an in- 
sight into the times of Queen Anne and George I. 
The London clubs were the resort of the most famous 
literary men. The Whigs and Tories were the two 
parties then prominent, and in their own club-houses, 



SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY 247 

where the followers of each gathered, they heard 
some penny weekly newspaper read, ate, drank, 
smoked, talked politics or told stories, until the small 
hours of the morning. The "Kit-Cat Club," "Will's 
Coffee-House," "The Grecian," "Child's," and the 
"Devil" are some of the names of the club resorts. 
(The coffee-houses in Charles II 's time were, at the 
close of his reign, centres where the principal men 
were to be found. Macaulay says the coffee-house 
was the Londoner's home, and those who wished to 
find a gentleman commonly asked, not whether he 
lived in Fleet Street or Chancery Lane, but whether 
he frequented the "Grecian" or the "Rainbow." 
Everybody who laid his penny at the bar was wel- 
come. There were Puritan coffee-houses, Jew coffee- 
houses, and Popish coffee-houses, and these con- 
tinued to flourish in Queen Anne's time as well as in 
the days of Charles II. 

Reform was much needed in Queen Anne's time, 
and Addison was the right person to attempt it. I 
learn from Welsh's description of the times, in his 
"Development of English Literature," that bull- 
baiting and cock-fighting and gambling were pro- 
minent and that the passion of gambling was as 
strong among the women as the men. 

The number of the coffee-houses in the metropolis 
in 1709, three years before the "Spectator" was pub- 
lished, was estimated to be three thousand. Drunk- 
enness was common among all classes. In 1724, the 



248 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

historian says, "The passion had spread among 
all classes with the violence of an epidemic. Re- 
tailers of gin hung out painted boards announcing 
that their customers could be made drunk for a penny, 
dead-drunk for twopence, and that cellars strewn 
with straw would be furnished without cost, into 
which they might be dragged when they had become 
insensible. Riots were frequent and robberies bold. 
Addison's Sir Roger, when he goes to the theatre, 
arms his servants with oaken cudgels. In 1712, while 
the * Spectator* was being published, 'the Mohocks,' 
a club of young men of the higher classes, were ac- 
customed nightly to sally out drunk into the streets, 
to hunt the passers-by. One of their favorite amuse- 
ments, called 'tipping the lion,' was to squeeze the 
nose of their victim flat upon his face and to bore out 
his eyes with their fingers. Among them were 'the 
sweaters,' who encircled their prisoner and pricked 
him with swords till be sank exhausted, and 'dancing 
masters ' made men caper by thrusting swords into 
their legs." 

When we read of such violence in the days of Sir 
Roger we do not wonder that there was fear of the 
"Mohocks," when men went home late, and when we 
consider that it was amid such scenes and surrounded 
by such influences that the " Spectator " was issued, 
our wonder grows and our admiration for Addison is 
increased, as we find him so successfully combatting 
the evils and faults of the times, and amid such as- 



SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY 249 

sociations, rising to display such sterling integrity as 
his history has revealed. 

Macaulay says : " So effectually indeed did he retort 
on vice the mockery which had recently been directed 
against virtue that since his time the open violation 
of decency has always been considered amongst us 
as the sure mark of a fool." With that good-humor 
and playful criticism of men's lives and habits, he 
had also a deep love for them, and an earnest wish 
that they might be made better and happier and 
spend their lives for something noble. The shams 
of society had no charm in his eyes; he sought to 
awaken interest in something elevating, and by his 
words allured to something better. The venomed 
shaft of Pope had a bitter sting in it, but was unfair, 
unjust, and unkind in the judgment of the best his- 
torian of the times; the closing hours of Addison's life 
repel any doubts as to his goodness and sincerity. He 
looked from Nature up to Nature's God. His adora- 
tion of his Maker is shown in verses which Thack- 
eray aptly says "seem to him to shine like the stars." 
I quote here the last part of the Hymn which is 
placed in Warner's "Library of Authors " as one of 
Addison's best productions. 

"Soon as the evening shades prevail, 
The moon takes up the wondrous tale. 
And nightly to the listening earth 
Repeats the story of her birth; 
Whilst all the stars that round her burn, 
And all the planets in their turn. 



250 EVENINGS WITH SHAKESPEARE 

Confirm the tidings as they roll, 
And spread the truth from pole to pole. 
What though, in solemn silence, all 
Move round this dark terrestrial ball; 
What though no real voice nor sound 
Amidst their radiant orbs be found; 
In reason's ear they all rejoice 
And utter forth a glorious voice, 
Forever singing as they shine, 
'The hand that made us is divine.' " 



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